Several weeks ago, we introduced the anti-theft USB-C cable from Apple retail store.
It got many views, and many comments asked us to take it apart.
And here it comes.
Let’s take apart this special cable to see what it looks like inside.
It looks like an ordinary USB-C cable.
But it’s actually an anti-theft cable.
It adopts a “full-pin” design.
And the outer material of the cable is TPE.
Take a closer look at the junction, we find the junction is much wider than ordinary cable.
Cause it has an additional anti-theft cable next to the charging cable.
The ChargerLAB POWER-Z KM003C shows it’s not equipped with an E-marker chip.
The weight of the cable is about 40g (1.41 oz).
And the length is about 2m (6.5 ft).
We did a simple voltage drop test to test its quality.
It can be divided into two parts.
The voltage drop value is only about 0.26V when charging with 1A.
And when charging with 3A, the value is obviously higher, at around 0.77V.
Next, let’s go ahead and take it apart.
Firstly, cut off the cable.
And use the knife the remove the outer TPE.
As always, there’s a layer of shielding net under it.
Some tensile fiber is mixed with a shielding net to improve its durability.
And all wires are wrapped with a layer of aluminum foil.
There’re nine wires in total.
Let’s introduce them one by one.
Those two thick red wires are pure copper, used for positive power supply.
The light green cable is the D+ wire, and the white one is the D- wire.
They’re used for USB 2.0 data transmission.
Here is the blue CC wire.
Those two bare tinned copper wires are connected in parallel, and used for negative power supply.
Except for those wires, the blue and red communication wires are used for anti-theft.
These are some tensile fibers inside the cable to make it more flexible.
Next, let’s use the cutting machine to cut off the USB-C connector.
And continue to remove the plastic case.
Just like all Apple wires we took apart before,
it has a steel sleeve to protect internal components, which is fixed by solder joints.
Here is the additional anti-theft cable.
Then, remove the steel sleeve.
There’s a circle of copper foil at the junction for shielding.
The anti-theft cable is composed of blue, red wires and some tensile fibers.
Once it detects the cable is disconnected, an alarm is triggered.
Clean up the PCB and remove the metal case of the internal pins.
The positive red wires, CC wire, USB2.0 D+, and D- wire are soldered on this side.
Flip to the back.
The bare negative wires are soldered here.
And the internal pins are fixed in a plastic frame.
Well, that’s all the wires and connectors of this special anti-theft cable.
The key feature of this cable is the additional blue and red wires for anti-theft.
It also has good insulation, and the thick steel sleeve can protect the internal structure.
The charging cable is almost identical to other Apple USB-C cables.
You can click the corners to check out the teardown of those cables.
OK. That’s all for today’s video.
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I’ll catch you guys in the next video.