There are so many different USB accessories (devices, connectors, cables, chargers, and whatever else), many of them unmarked regarding what they are bundled with, that it is hard to keep their relationships straight. Is it always safe to combine things if they feel like they fit mechanically?
The Wikipedia article about USB says there are incompatible variants. I didn’t pick up that there was risk of damage, though - only the possibility that combinations would not be useful.
USB voltage is always 5v, so as long as everything is truly designed for USB, there should be no problems mixing and matching.
Most of the compatibility stuff on Wikipedia seems to be talking about physical interconnectibility of different types of plug.
Anything that plugs properly together should be OK (won’t necessarily do anything - for example, plugging my camera’s USB cable into a USB PSU won’t charge the camera, because the camera doesn’t support charging by USB, and the camera obviously isn’t going to transfer image files into the wall.
Thanks!
From experience, I can tell you that the PC monitors the current to the USB port(s) and will shut down the power to a port that exceeds the safe power threshold. This has proved ‘useful’ for troubleshooting our vendors’ broken junk… (*grumble…lousy Chinese quality control …*grumble… )
So experiment away!
Counterpoint - from experience, I can tell you that not all PCs do this properly, and it is possible to cause a USB port to be disabled due to overcurrent.
Most PCs, however, seem to do it right.
FYI - technical details - in theory, a USB device can only draw 100mA when initially connected. It can then request the ability to draw up to 500mA. Most PCs will grant this - I’ve found that laptops will grant the request if they are plugged into the wall, and usually will refuse it if they are running on battery power.
The extra 400mA can really make a difference in charging speed for your cell phone, and even whether you are gaining or loosing power on the phone while in a call.
-D/a
Also to be clear …
If you’re talking about the USB data cables & connectors themselves, then I agree with all the posters above.
BUT …
Some devices which use USB for communications also have separate power supplies and power connections. For those power connections, there is no relationship between plug size/shape and the power supplied or demanded. Plugging the wrong wall wart into a device can cook it in milliseconds even if the plug & socket fit perfectly.
Sansa products and iPod products have ports (the player end where you attach your accessories to the player) that look identical but actually have the positive and negative terminals switched. So you can plug an iPod charger into a Sansa mp3 player but it won’t work. I’ve heard that you can damage your Sansa/iPod this way but I’ve never tried it first hand and don’t know enough about electronics to guess.
For work, I once helped up a 12V car charger to a call phone…backwards.
I don’t know if it’s considered damaging, but it does let you know exactly how much smoke is included in the phone…
-D/a
This is exactly the sort of thing I’m worried about.
You only get so much smoke in a player. Once it leaks out, you’re done. DitnA understands this well.
But I thought the iPod port was Apple’s own invention. Did Sansa copy it, or is it actually a standard? Were they trying to make life a little messier? It’s like having a “Self Destruct” software option that defaults to “randomly occasional” instead of “off”. What possesses companies to do this?
To clarify, I think Jophiel is talking about USB peripherals which have their own assorted external PSUs with non-USB jack plugs that might look alike, but have assorted different voltages, current ratings or polarities.
Anything that uses a USB connector should be compliant with USB standards - so it should be OK to mix and match those.