colour-codingusbwire
Hi so i have two duracell chare cables. One is 6 feet the other 10, the 10 foot broke so I purchased a 6 foot and was going to lengthen it. Since they are both duracell I figured wires would match easily…the 10 foot has red, green, white, and uninsulated wire
The other cable has grey, yellow, pink, and white? What colors goto what?
Cable A
Red (power)
Green (data -)
White (data +)
Uninsulated wire (ground)
Cable B
Grey
Neon Yellow
Pink
White
The cable colours will vary from cable to cable. Use a continuity checker or ohmmeter to determine which wire is connected to which pin on the plug.
It's easy to just test the connectivity from the pins on the connector-end of the cable to the bare wires at the other end.
Even a hardware store multimeter is good enough for this test.
Disconnect the cable at both ends. Set your meter to the ohms function.
Touch one probe of the meter to one pin of the connector. Touch the other probe to one of the wires. If the wire is connected to the pin, you'll see (near) zero ohms. Depending on your meter you might also get a beep for continuity.
The pin assignments for the connector are readily available. Here's a picture from Wikipedia:
If your connector is a mini or micro type, those pinouts are also available from the Wikipedia article on USB.
Best Answer
Since you say you don't have much experience with a DMM, here's how you do it:
1) Select "continuity test" mode. That's the mode that makes the DMM beep when you touch the two leads together. It will look something like this:
2) From each of the pins on each connector, find the wire that makes the DMM beep. You should now be able to match the colors and complete the cable.
EDIT: Continuity tests will only work to the USB end since the other end includes a chip. (Thanks DoxyLover!)