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I found a car charger that works for my PlayBook, but now I've decided to look for a retractable cable to go with it so I don't have to have the regular one trailing all over my car. The ones I have found so far look a little flimsy. Are there minimum specs for a usb cable to handle the power needs of the PlayBook? Thanks to anyone who knows about this stuff.
According to the American Wire Gauge charts, the two copper cores of the cable should be AWG18 or thicker to carry 2A. That's about 1mm each. But in reality, using thinner wires will only drop the power slightly, making the PB charge more slowly. The cable may also heat up slightly. If this becomes a problem, just make sure your cable is unrolled when charging.
For a data connection, a USB 2.0 cable is limited to about 5m by the latency caused by the wire, much more than other electrical properties such as resistance.
Thank you very much. I appreciate such a detailed and knowledgeable response.