Pics would be helpful
I am pretty busy this week, I am posting when I have breaks and I don't have it with me. When I'll have the time I will make a post with photos and measurements and I will probably also open it up.
In my experience, if they don't include the conductor in the connector, there will generally not be a wire for it in the cable. So replacing the USB-C connector is probably not going to add any functionality.
I have a stack of USB-A to USB mini/micro cables that are a bit like this. Two conductors, only do charging. So if I replace the connector, there's no wire to connect the D+ / D- lines to. It's quite possible the manufacturer of your cable had some similar or otherwise reduced feature set in mind, and wanted to save 5 cents of copper.
I also have some cursed cables that have normal ports, but only two wires inside the cable (power/ground), or are otherwise out-of-spec in ways that make the data lines mostly fail. These have wasted quite a bit of my time over the years.
I only need a USB 2.0 cable mostly for charging, I have better cables, I chose this one for the liquid silicone outer layer. Of course if the wires inside are less than four or too thin I won't waste USB connectors (that I already have, I would not order them for this) and I will recycle it.
Sounds like you bought a crappy cable. Why not just buy a good one instead of disassembling and replacing stuff?
My guess is that it needs the fifth pin to trick some devices to think that it’s a 3.0 cable instead of a 2.0 with a c connector.
Type C 2.0 exists and is widespread and that is what I wanted, the issue is that it doesn't work as a 2.0 cable either. I like the liquid silicone exterior and I have a few connectors ready so if I like what's inside I may upgrade it. Otherwise I will recycle it and I already have better cables.
Hey fair enough. If you are really concerned about what it if you could always reach out to the manufacturer
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