One of the primary selling points of USB Type-C is that it can become a universal standard — one cable for power, data, video, and more. Not all implementations of Type-C are created equal, though. The Raspberry Pi 4 launched recently, moving from micro USB to USB-C for power. However, it looks like the designers made a crucial error in designing the board that limits which USB-C cables you can use.
The Raspberry Pi 4 has been lauded for its improved specs while keeping the low price tag of the original. Starting at $35, the Raspberry Pi 4 has a more powerful Broadcom BCM2711 chip with four ARM Cortex A72 CPU cores at 1.5GHz.That chip can decode 4K videos at 60fps using HEVC/H.265, render OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics, and output 4K video to a monitor via micro HDMI. It also sports two USB 3.0 ports instead of 2.0 like the Raspberry Pi 3.
Perhaps the most notable change was the move to USB Type-C for power. After all, many phones and laptops have shipped with USB-C cables for power and data for years, so you probably have a few of them laying around. It didn’t take long for Raspberry Pi 4
Luckily, the Raspberry Pi is open hardware. So, it wasn’t hard to figure out what went wrong. According to Tyler Ward, the designers made a mistake in the USB connector design. USB Type-C has two CC pins, and each of them should have a separate 5.1K ohms resistor. However, the diagram below shows that both CC pins connect to the same resistor.
The problem is that many USB-C cables are what are known as “e-marked,” meaning they have chips inside that detect the capabilities of connected devices. You see these cables most often with laptops and phones that have high-wattage charging. If you plug one of those into the Raspberry Pi 4, it detects it as an audio accessory like earbuds or a 3.5mm adapter because of the incorrect resistor setup. As a result, the cable doesn’t supply power, and your Raspberry Pi won’t start up.
The best workaround right now is to just use a cheaper USB-C cable that doesn’t care about the CC pin design. There is an official Pi 4 charger for sale that will definitely work — it’s about $10 online. The Raspberry Pi Foundation will probably fix this design error in future board revisions, so you might get a more compatible device if you wait for that.
Now read:
- A Rogue Raspberry Pi Let Hackers Into NASA’s JPL Network
- Raspberry Pi Opens Its First Official Retail Store
- Google Unveils AI-Powered Camera Kit for Raspberry Pi
