A little help with soldering a custom cable

[ledriver]

Hey folks, longtime lurker first time poster. I'm trying to figure out how to make my own custom USB cables and could use some help as I'm a total electronics/soldering noob and have been trying to teach myself from YouTube tutorials over the last few weeks. I've put together a few cables so far, but none of them have worked (either no response when plugging them into my keyboard, or USB devices are disabled because 'the USB device is consuming too much power').

I think there is a problem with connecting the wires to the wrong pins, as my soldering looks OK (I've deconstructed a few working cables to compare).

Here are the parts I'm using:

Shielded 4 Wire USB cable wire (red, white, yellow, black wires)
ASSMANN WSW Type A USB Connector, Cable Mount Plug, 30 V, 1A
Hirose UX Series Cable Mount Version 2.0 Type B Mini USB Connector Plug, 5 V ac, 1A

In all the pinout diagrams I've found for these types of connectors, the USB cable wires are red, white, green (or blue) and black. I don't have a green wire in my cable - I have yellow instead. So far I've assumed the yellow wire I have is filling the same role as the green wire, but not sure how to verify. Does anybody know if this is correct?

I'm also not sure how I should solder the Hirose UX Mini USB connector. Most of the Mini USB pinout diagrams I've found are for a version with three soldering bays on the lower level, and then the white cable is soldered on one of the bays above. The connectors I have are different, with five very thin bays in a row. It's quite challenging to solder and I'm not sure which order to put the wires. If anyone can help me with which order to put the wires, that would be awesome.

[invariance]

I don't have a green wire in my cable - I have yellow instead. So far I've assumed the yellow wire I have is filling the same role as the green wire, but not sure how to verify. Does anybody know if this is correct?

You are correct.  It's just the colour of the insulation and as long as it is connected correctly, it doesn't matter if you had all different colours.

I'm also not sure how I should solder the Hirose UX Mini USB connector. Most of the Mini USB pinout diagrams I've found are for a version with three soldering bays on the lower level, and then the white cable is soldered on one of the bays above. The connectors I have are different, with five very thin bays in a row. It's quite challenging to solder and I'm not sure which order to put the wires. If anyone can help me with which order to put the wires, that would be awesome.

For your mini B plug, refer to the datasheet for the pin assignment.  Copntact 1 is the left most solder contact, this will be V+.  Continue along to the right with contact 2 as Data-, contact 3 is Data+, contact 4 is not connected and contact 5 is ground.  This can be crosschecked against Wikipedia's entry, remembering to view your insert at the plug end with contacts facing down, ie don't turn it over.
You will find the type A plug there as well to check against if need be.

Don't forget to wrap the shield back over the outer insulation and clamp it under the cable strain relief when done.

Please check continuity of each connection against a bought cable before use; we don't wont to let the smoke out.

[ledriver]

Hi invariance - you're awesome. Super helpful post! I will try making another cable today and report back with the results. I think my main problem has been reading pinout diagrams incorrectly.

Don't forget to wrap the shield back over the outer insulation and clamp it under the cable strain relief when done.

Thanks for the advice - I don't think I've been doing a very good job of managing the outer shield (mainly just cutting it away from the exposed wires).

[ledriver]

Hi folks - reporting back on my latest attempt. Another failure! My laptop doesn't respond to my keyboard at all when using this cable.

I took photos of everything in case someone can see where I might be going wrong (sorry for the potato pics)...






I think(?) the wiring is correct according to the pinout diagrams on the USB 2.0 Wikipedia page, which leads me to think that maybe my soldering is bad. I do struggle to do a good job soldering the Mini USB B cable in particular, and I'm very inexperienced with soldering, so please let me know if that could be the problem.

Appreciate everyone's help!

[smknjoe]

You can easily test for continuity with a multimeter if you think there is a problem with the soldering.

[smknjoe]

Same goes for the pin-out.

[ledriver]

You can easily test for continuity with a multimeter if you think there is a problem with the soldering.

Thanks for the suggestion. I went out and grabbed a cheap multimeter to test the cable - seems like a useful tool to have anyway. It beeped as expected for each connection when touched to the gold-plated pins, so it seems like the continuity is OK. If there are any other tests I should do with the multimeter I'd be happy to try.

Wondering if anyone can see an obvious problem with the way the connectors are wired? Here's a photo of the wiring for reference:

Datasheet for this Mini USB type B



Datasheet for this USB type A



Thanks again for the help, you guys are awesome.

[smknjoe]

Are you sure you have the pinout right? Shouldn't it be a straight-through cable (red to red, white to white, etc.)? Looks like you have rwyb on one end and bywr on the other.

BTW,  invariance already pointed this out. I'm just repeating it.

[invariance]

Also check for shorts between the pins, especially on the mini B.

[SKD]

.

[ledriver]

Hey guys, thank you for all the help.

tl;dr The last cable was fine, I'm just a dummy.

It turns out that the last cable I made (photographed) was wired up and soldered correctly. I tested the pinout continuity and voltage with a multimeter and compared them to a working cable - they were the same. I was stumped. Tried the cable on a friend's laptop and it worked! It turns out that I was testing the keyboard connection on my laptop's lock screen and it couldn't register the keyboard in that context... I know, really really dumb. Ah well, live and learn.

Thanks again for all the help. I will write up a guide for how to make these USB to Mini USB B cables and share it back with the community when I get a little better at constructing the cables and have tested the cables I make to ensure they hold up over the longer term.

Thanks again for all your generous help - this community is truly awesome.

[ledriver]

Just wanted to share the final result:

[ProCarpet]

Looks nice gj i like the red heat shrink