What’s wrong with cheap cables? Copper is copper and 5V are 5V. Cheap charger, I still follow you, since it can potentially emit something other than 5V. A cheap USB-C cable is 4 copper wires instead of implementing the whole bloated spec, but that’s about it. Okay, maybe they cheaped out and used aluminum, so the cable is gonna heat up just a tiny bit more, big deal.
I think is more on the high-end side. For example, a cheap cablemaker can use wires that can only handle 100W but label them as 240W in the e-marker chip. If you use that on your FL16, it can fry or damage your computer. 60W cables don’t need a chip and are passive only
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Aluminum is premium chinesium these days. They now do steel or some other ferromagnetic alloy. Magnets will attract the junkiest cables.
But of course their disregard for laws and life extends beyond the wires. USB-C connectors have tiny pins a fraction of a millimeter apart. Extreme corner cutting increases the risk of pins not staying aligned & sorting across other contacts.
Don’t get me wrong, I do use cheap cables for cheap things I don’t care much about. But I’m hesitant to risk it with expensive devices. Or anything which would cause me hassle if it dies.
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Even cheap things you don’t care about can pose a risk. I don’t vape but know those who do. The idea of plugging some cheaply made gas station disposable vape into a cheap cable and worse still cheap power adapter is just asking for the opportunity to experience how good your fire insurance policy is on your home.
How much are you really saving anyways? You can buy a generic but reputable USBC cable from Best Buy’s house brand Insignia for like $5
Will it be very good? No, expect USB 2.0 speeds and 60W or less charging speed. But I trust it not to ignite or contribute to something else igniting. Saving $2 to buy a cable of Aliexpress/Amazon Haul/Temu is just not worth IMO.
I simply do not buy cables that aren’t USB-IF certified, period.
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???
It’s relevant because it’s my lived experience. I’ve had other laptops that ONLY had USB-C ports and I adapted back then… ergo, having only USB-C ports now is No Big Deal 
In my tech pouch that goes everywhere my laptop goes, I have quality C-C cables, the majority of my accessories now are expecting USB-C input / output and for the rare cases that isn’t true (I need to connect something to someone elses device) I have a C>A and A>C adapters as well as a USB-C to HDMI dongle. For a long time, my monitor at home was a Thunderbolt display, which uses *drumroll* USB-C as a connector so I didn’t even need to dig that one out that often.
I even have a C>A-micro adapter and A-micro > lightning adapter for those really weird edge cases.
Carrying those is, in my mind, easier overall than worrying about whether I have the correct expansion cards with me today, are less bulky than the equivalent set of expansion cards and none of these items were purchased recently (and certainly not because of my choice of going USB-C only in my Framework).
ymmv, but that’s a you thing.
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If I get the cheapest cable C-to-C from a corner store, it costs 10 bucks and breaks in 15 days. From Aliexpress, I get, like, 20 for the same price, and each still breaks in 15 days. Meanwhile, A-to-C cables are cheaper and take at least a couple months to die.
Yeah.. Because what’s on the one end of the cable changes the strength of the entire cable..
The cable-connector interface is the most frail part of the cable.
To me, this whole discussion makes me think it’s probably for the best that all the ports are modular and can be swapped out for whatever each person wants. Because everyone seems to prefer something different for their own reasons.
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That just sounds abusive. I have cables that last years, regardless of connector. That or just poorly manufactured cables.
So many of these cables are either on clearance or have an open box version for half off.
When you say corner store, I think gas station. I believe you when say they break easy. I’m 100% confident they were purchased off AliExpress and then marked up.
Either way, you asked why it was a bad idea to use garbage cables. Your question was answered. The internet is literally littered with stories of people igniting laptops and phones with poor quality charging cables/power adapters. Maybe you have a USB cable tester and check all your cables before you use them. I doubt it. If you’re so hellbent to save $2-3 then I wish you luck and good fortune. If it works out with no issues for the next 10 years, I suggest you go to Vegas.
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Again, copper is copper and 5V is 5V.
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Hey! We have community driven and staff driven 3D printables that are searchable to combat any EC storage issues that will protect them and ensure they’re always near to hot swap.
Also, please use generic / cheap / non-rated / non-insurable cables at your own risk. Ive had some that were decent, and some that were really, really bad. If something happened with one, it may also affect the warranty (on any electronic, not just Framework)… so buyer beware.
Thirdly, please… if you notice your cables are split, frayed, or have defects… do not use them… in ANY electronic.
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Copper is copper but the amount of copper absolutely does influence the resistance of the cable, and let’s not even get into other aspects of a cable other than its raw ingredients such as those relating to its build quality and endurance. Even on AliExpress you can find cables from reputable brands such as Anker and UGREEN for reasonable prices, there’s no reason to go for the lowest tier cables.
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We’re talking about 2A, any copper cable robust enough to to not explode as soon as you touch it is robust enough to carry 2A, because of the combo of copper being mechanically weak but very good at conducting. I guess a laptop charger is 3A, well, what I just said still applies.
Okay, a 240W charger is roughly 20V 12A, which is 4x the current of 3A, and the power dissipated by a resistor scares quadratically with the current, so it’s 16x the heat to dissipate than with 3A (36x the power dissipated at 2A), and yeah, I guess at that point I’d need to care about the quality of the cable.
The thing is, why should I care about 240W power delivery in the first place? Peripherals that consume a non-trivial amount of power have their own power bricks, a 13 Pro isn’t powering a power-hungry dedicated GPU, and fast charging stresses the battery and reduces its lifespan. And a phone has even less of an argument for fast charging because the batteries and power budgets are already tiny.
I probably shouldn’t bother wading into this discussion, but I’ll just point out that cheap, impure copper can increase resistance, and copper that isn’t properly annealed can more easily work harden and break. Insulation quality can vary, as can the type and quality of shielding. All of this can affect durability and signal quality. Cheap cables may not have an e-marker chip, or may have the wrong one. In general, in cheap electronics with poor quality control I’ve seen cold solder joints, stray wire strands, stray solder blobs, improper grounding, mis-wired connectors, shorted connectors, and more.
How common any of that is to happen with a cheap USB-C cable, I can’t say. Most of them are probably okay. And even an expensive cable can fail. So I can’t say how much more likely it is for a cheap cable to damage a device. But cables can fail in ways that can damage a device. Personally, I choose not to use the cheapest possible cables. Does that make it less likely I’ll have something fail? I like to think so, but how much, I have no idea. And it’s obviously no guarantee. Everyone will have to decide where they fall on the risk/reward scale (risk of device damage vs. reward of spending less on cables).
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Yeah, exactly this.. You save few bucks and risk hundreds/thousands USD worth device.. I’d say the effort on this conversation was not even worth it 
And how did this even end up here? Oh yeah.. someone wanted a 5th port on their device. I guess FW13 is not for them then.. Or just look at community developers thing to find dual-port cards.
I don’t need 50 ports on my machine (2 is fine for me actually. Just USB-C on either side), so Framework is fine for me. And I’ve recently had to fix the only usb-c port on my mom’s Dell, because it’s on the wrong side and the cable was always putting pressure on the port till it gave in, so I’ll swear by the current FW design (even though it may not be perfect).
That said, I won’t say that “your ways are dumb” or something.. Even though I don’t know why would one need to bring keyboard and mouse everywhere so that they would need to bring the dongle everywhere. If it’s just at your desk, 5$ dongle will cover you fine and you don’t need to bring it anywhere as you’ll have free ports when not at your desk. But if you’re carrying that much infrastructure with your laptop - just buy a bigger laptop that covers all your needs better.
honestly I am surprised that the audio jack port didn’t also doesn’t have a mic-in port, seems like that would be the best way to justify the size
You mean a dedicated one? Because it does have mic in over trrs.
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whether you have expensive cables or whatever
it is most important to have a backup
and then have a backup of the backup
this is not just about data, it is also about backup cables