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This Just Saved me $100,000 - Totalphase Cable Tester - YouTube
Channel: unknown
[0]
- This is a high quality cable, right?
[2]
You know, if I was
doing a simple unboxing,
[4]
I'd be fooled too.
[5]
It's got a nice, flexible sheath,
[7]
sturdy strain relief boots,
[8]
ferrite rings for signal filtering.
[10]
I mean, it says high speed right on it.
[13]
They wouldn't lie, would they?
[14]
(buzzer sound)
[15]
They would, it's a piece of crap.
[17]
It's dead, it's gone.
[18]
And how do we know?
[20]
Thanks to Total Phase who sent over
[22]
their advanced cable tester, V2.
[24]
This thing is sick.
[26]
Now it's industrial equipment,
[28]
so it's not the kind of
thing we typically cover,
[30]
but it costs a fraction as
much as competing solutions,
[35]
and we learned so much from using it
[38]
that it absolutely deserves
some time in the spotlight.
[42]
Just like our sponsor, GlassWire.
[43]
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that's connecting to your PC,
[46]
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[48]
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[50]
you'll be notified instantly.
[51]
So don't wait, save
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[54]
at the link down below.
[56]
(upbeat music)
[65]
So what you might say, you
can test the cable, big whoop,
[68]
wanna fight about it.
[69]
Yeah, I do wanna fight about it.
[71]
It's a very big whoop.
[72]
We first explored the idea
of doing LTT store cables,
[75]
a couple of years ago, but we
ran into a major roadblock.
[78]
While it's easy to find
an overseas supplier
[80]
who can produce every kind
of cable under the sun,
[83]
it can be very difficult,
not to mention costly,
[86]
to validate their work.
[88]
You need an expensive
faciliscope, custom fixtures,
[91]
and perhaps most importantly,
a skilled operator.
[95]
Or you can treat yourself to one of these.
[98]
But what exactly do
you get for your money?
[101]
Well, a three amp, 12 volt power supply,
[104]
all the associated cablery that's needed
[106]
to operate the machine, a
tiny little sheet outlining
[109]
all of the reasons that Total Phase
[110]
can invalidate your warranty
and the tester, of course.
[114]
There's not really much
to show on the outside.
[115]
You've got your power switch.
[117]
You got a LAN and micro
USB port on the back.
[119]
There's no interface whatsoever.
[122]
So there's a little LED here.
[123]
This is a non-touch screen.
[125]
You don't actually interact
with the unit at all,
[127]
other than this slot right here.
[130]
So on the inside, you've
got these two female slots
[134]
and then the test boards for whatever type
[136]
of interface you want.
[137]
So this is an HDMI one,
just pop in like this.
[140]
And then they've got these little, like,
[142]
what are they, quarter of a
turn third of a turn, lugs.
[145]
So it looks like a big
normal captive thumbscrew,
[149]
but actually it's super,
super fast to install.
[152]
Let's poke around inside, shall we.
[153]
Now that we've got this baby opened up,
[155]
you can see the chassis
is bigger than necessary,
[157]
but not by much.
[160]
All the main board traces and components
[161]
are nicely laid out and labeled.
[163]
So we've got 12 volt DC power coming in,
[166]
right about there.
[167]
And it gets stepped down into
3.3 and 5V on these lines
[172]
where they go, ah, there's 3.3
[174]
and there's five right about there.
[176]
And they've worked some clever
modularity into the design,
[178]
our test interface sockets,
each with similar circuitry,
[182]
come out right over here.
[185]
And then they feed out
into what appears to be
[188]
the processor stack on a
separate mezzanine board.
[191]
We did by the way, note, a
couple of manually soldered wires
[194]
here, but Kyle from engineering
says they're I2C lines
[197]
and won't affect anything, so
presumably it's the kind of
[199]
thing that wasn't worth spinning up
[201]
another revision of the board for.
[203]
What I suspect does the actual processing
[205]
is this one right here,
and this one right here,
[207]
because those are the ones
they've scratched out.
[209]
So yeah, this is doing some processing,
[211]
but this is probably more of
a general purpose processor,
[214]
hosting the web server and maybe taking
[216]
whatever the outputs of these are.
[218]
This is actually quite normal.
[220]
It's not like they scratch those out
[222]
because they were sending
them to the media.
[223]
It's really common in
the same kinds of places
[226]
where cables get made, cable factories,
[228]
for people to try to
reverse engineer the tools
[231]
that they need to make
and validate cables.
[234]
So obviously anything they
can do to protect their IP
[236]
from their customers even is
probably a worthwhile step.
[241]
In theory, this thing is so simple to use
[245]
that literally anyone could
validate pretty much any cable
[249]
that they would find on a shelf.
[251]
USB Thunderbolt, lightning,
very, very frightening
[253]
♪ Galileo ♪
[254]
display port, and even HDMI,
all the way up to Version 2.1,
[258]
which has a blazing 48 gigabit per second,
[261]
across four twisted pairs.
[264]
Let's give it a whirl on
some of our many cables.
[266]
We're at the size now where LMG owns
[269]
a disturbing number of cables,
[271]
like literally hundreds of
them in every freaking style
[277]
and every freaking size.
[280]
Now we could test power
cables, but in our experience,
[283]
those have been mostly problem-free.
[286]
Video cables, on the other hand,
[288]
especially long ones or
specimens with odd terminations
[292]
can and have given us
issues over the years,
[296]
like these Monoprice display port cables.
[299]
I don't know that this is going to fail,
[301]
but I have a strong
suspicion that it will.
[304]
I remember our first standing desk configs
[306]
in the editing den, we
used these for the monitors
[308]
and I remember them having
a ton of problems with them.
[311]
I'm starting with this display port cable,
[313]
cause I am sure that there is
something le suck about it.
[318]
These horrible cables,
[319]
these cause so many headaches or maybe,
[321]
maybe it was something else.
[323]
Now we're gonna know for
sure, just starts going.
[327]
Love it.
[328]
(buzzer sound)
[329]
I knew it.
[330]
Signal integrity, it sucks.
[331]
Let's have a look at
the full report though.
[333]
So we want to go into details
here and things get real
[337]
freaking interesting.
[338]
On top of just pass fail,
[340]
which is all most people
would need to know,
[342]
here, we can dig into this
interactive diagram, pin by pin.
[346]
We can make our way down
through all the different ways
[350]
that it could fail, so you
can see our DC resistance
[352]
is actually within spec and right there,
[356]
- [Colin] It outright failed.
[357]
- No freaking wonder in
all the prep Colin did
[360]
for this video, I don't
think you saw this, did you?
[362]
- [Colin] No, I've never seen that.
[363]
- It's time to make an e-waste bin.
[365]
The next big reorg I
want us to take every bin
[368]
and every cable and run them
through the cable tester.
[371]
- Yeah sure.
[372]
- We take all the ones that don't pass,
[374]
and throw them away.
[375]
- Deal.
- Never to be seen again.
[377]
You guys might be thinking
that sounds like a lot of work,
[380]
but compared to the amount
of time that we waste
[383]
trying to diagnose problems
that are ultimately caused
[385]
by a crappy cable, oh.
[388]
Let's have a look at how
it's supposed to look
[390]
with some cables that stand
a better chance of passing.
[393]
Is this our e-waste bin, by the way?
[394]
- [Man] That is.
[395]
- See you later.
[396]
Premium high speed, ETC,
let's find out, shall we?
[401]
(buzzer sounds)
[403]
Oh my God.
[404]
All of these pins here
are supposed to have
[409]
ground connections for signal integrity,
[412]
and they just don't.
[414]
So while our signal integrity passes here,
[418]
what could happen to this
cable, is that it could stop
[421]
working if there's
something nearby that causes
[424]
any kind of interference.
[425]
Pretty crazy.
[426]
Now I said that the
signal integrity passed,
[429]
but clearly you can see
looking at these charts
[432]
that this is where the
rubber hits the road
[434]
from a science-y perspective.
[436]
So we're gonna throw
over to Professor Riley
[438]
to explain what the heck
we're looking at here.
[440]
- Thanks Linus.
[441]
I diagrams, are a visual
representation of the voltage
[444]
on a pair of wires.
[447]
These lines here are your signal.
[448]
When the signal was up here
above the eye, it's a one
[451]
when it's below, it's a zero,
[454]
and that's binary data baby.
[456]
(laughs)
[457]
This gray hexagon outlined
shape in the center is the eye.
[461]
And inside that is an eye mask in blue.
[465]
That's a no-go zone.
[466]
If any of our signal
lines enter the eye mask,
[468]
the receiving device won't
be able to get a clean read
[471]
of the signal, which means
the cable cannot be trusted.
[478]
Now let's look at a perfect I diagram.
[481]
Every sample of our signal ends up stacked
[483]
right over top of the last
with no imperfections,
[487]
this would allow us to
dramatically increase
[489]
the clock speed of the signal,
[491]
faster signal, more data.
[494]
Yeah.
[495]
Unfortunately in the real world,
no two samples will end up
[498]
exactly alike and there are two main ways
[500]
signal noise affects the
cable, signal loss and jitter.
[506]
It's really big cards.
[507]
Signal loss is pretty easy to understand,
[510]
as the length of the wire increases,
[512]
the voltage measured at
the other end will fall
[515]
due to the resistance of the wire.
[517]
If it drops to within the eye,
[518]
well that's game over baby.
[520]
That's why higher quality
cables tend to use copper
[523]
rather than aluminum due to
its superior conductivity.
[527]
You really made this.
[530]
As for jitter, well, it's
a little more complex,
[533]
but in a nutshell, due to factors such as,
[535]
electromagnetic interference
and processing delays,
[538]
it's normal for signal timing to vary.
[541]
This is mostly caused
by the signal source.
[543]
And as you can imagine too
much variance puts us closer
[546]
to the eye and closer to signal loss city,
[551]
where data goes
[553]
to die.
[557]
That's all for this lesson.
[558]
Don't forget to hand in your homework.
[560]
Bye-bye now.
[561]
(bell rings)
[562]
- This one is poo poo.
[563]
Here's one of our longer HDMI cables.
[566]
This is supposedly a 4K
UHD cable, so HDMI 2.0.
[573]
Oh wow, that's a pass.
[576]
Oh wow, you can see it's
a lot messier, but oh,
[581]
that's really close.
[583]
That's what happens when
you have a super thin cable
[586]
that's longer though.
[587]
You got a worst conductor.
[588]
You got a worst freaking signal integrity.
[591]
Either way, it's a keeper.
[592]
I wanna see how close it can
get for HDMI 2.1 spec though.
[597]
(buzzer sound)
[598]
0% measured.
[599]
Do we have any of our HDMI 2.1 cables?
[603]
Let's see if these
cables we paid extra for
[606]
for their HDMI 2.1 capabilities
are even any better.
[613]
That's fine, just fine.
[614]
We got a keeper here.
[615]
This is your cable.
- [Andy] This is my cable.
[617]
- Let's find out if you
wasted your money, Andy,
[619]
there's no way it's gonna do HDMI 2.1.
[621]
(buzzer sound)
[623]
Ooh, it's borderline.
[625]
- [Man] Yeah look at that,
it's 8db-9dbs of loss,
[628]
and 13 on the final pair.
[630]
- Yeah, that's pretty cool, okay.
[633]
I'm in like cable testing mode here now.
[636]
Okay, who's Buyer's Point.
[638]
Okay, Buyer's Point made this
HDMI, supposedly 2.1 cable.
[643]
You wanna get called out Buyer's Point?
[647]
Called out in a positive way.
[649]
So now that we know how all of that works,
[650]
does that mean we're gonna
start reviewing cables?
[654]
Well, yes,
[656]
but actually no.
[657]
We're not just gonna take one
cable and do a review of it,
[661]
that seems kind of ridiculous.
[663]
But because cables are
one area of technology
[667]
where snake oil and BS are
still extremely prevalent,
[672]
I think there's a lot
of good that we can do
[674]
by casting light on
brands or product lines
[678]
that are not properly
adhering to the standards.
[681]
And we want your guidance for
how to use our newfound cable
[684]
testing powers for good, HDMI, 2.1,
[687]
absolutely on our hit list, and USB-C.
[690]
Although boy, is that ever
gonna be a can of worms
[693]
and a half.
[694]
And if you guys have got other ideas,
[695]
go ahead and leave them
down in the comments
[697]
or hop over to our forum down below,
[699]
because we want to know
what you wanna see.
[701]
And since I'm telling you guys what to do,
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