Yesterday, I plugged a usb A memory stick into my phone using a USB-C OTG adapter. I had used it before and knew it worked, but this time, it said that it was charging my phone, and I couldn't figure out how to make the flash drive be recognised as storage.

I spent a while troubleshooting and then saw a suggestion to unplug the adapter and rotate it (i.e. do the thing that you do when you try to plug in a USB A but it's the wrong way round (except this was obviously usb C)). It worked. I was nonplussed but happy it worked.

This post reminded me of that

I remember learning about the 5v pin when working in an IT service desk. Displayport cables (at least the old ones, i dont know if the new ones have it) didnt have the 5v pin so when converting to hdmi, hdmi had to be the source/input and the displayport had to be the output. Unless the converter had a usb or power cable input but we didn't buy those as standard.

The number of tickets that people were faffing around trying to work out why the cable wasn't working that were solved by me spending 5 minutes doing a google search was embarrassing. And i still had to tell them again, all the time.

Learning about that lead to learning about all different display conversion cables and which worked and which didnt. And the various types of dvi cables.

All interesting stuff.

The VGA port does have a 5V pin, but I wouldn't suggest trying to charge a phone from it. It's probably not intended to supply much current.

If you had an old Samsung android smartphone or select HTC Windows Mobile (win ce 6.1/6.5) phones, they had HDMI over micro USB.

The HDMI-to-VGA adapter needs 5V on its micro USB port, then it may work (if the adapters are correct and the phone or tablet supports MHL). 😂

Those are some anxious electrons.

The monitor practically became a charging light

There’s no way that charges.

Cries in Electronic Engineer

I love random conversion stuff. But it always makes me worried when USB is so often the core. I really think exposing the serial bus and power simultaneously to the user in a simple plug and basically hoping it doesn't blow up.