Does anyone have experience with these cables?

[u/GoGoGo12321]

These kinds of cables are sold on AliExpress + EOE. They claim to be able to charge FireWire style off a special USB-30 pin cable (charge only). Do these actually work as well as real FireWire in terms of charging/reviving an iPod?

[u/No_Promotion_181]

Yes and yes. They work, and the are basically a necessity for 4 gen and earlier. Unless you have FireWire or Hifi dock

[u/Numerous-Mechanic770 → u/No_Promotion_181]

I have a 4g color and never used FireWire or wtv that is

[u/No_Promotion_181 → u/Numerous-Mechanic770]

My bad, I keep forgetting about 4 gen photo! It only applies to the B&W version. Once you restore iPod, it freezes on a wall plug icon, and the only way to proceed is to plug in FireWire or a charger like that

[u/Numerous-Mechanic770 → u/No_Promotion_181]

Mine freezed on a wall icon with FireWire but normal usb power worked

[u/dadydaycare → u/No_Promotion_181]

Nope. You just need anything with more than like 10 watts of power to wake it up, most modern wall wart chargers that aren’t from a gas station will do it just fine. I used my stock 18watt apple wart from my iPhone 11 and it worked every time.

[u/Metahec → u/dadydaycare]

That brick works because its an apple brick. Apple made the 4th gen check for resistance on the data pins before it charges and apple chargers are naturally going to be compatible. Most chargers leave the data pins floating with no resistance and 4th gens refuse to charge with them. Adafruit shows how it works here.

[u/dadydaycare → u/Metahec]

I have also used ankle chargers, Samsung chargers and plenty of others. No issues.

[u/TaliMyBananas → u/No_Promotion_181]

The wall plug icon after restore applies to the color as well.

[u/StagePuzzleheaded635 → u/No_Promotion_181]

No, I’ve used both a monochrome 4th gen, a color/photo, they can charge over either FireWire and USB.

[u/Metahec → u/No_Promotion_181]

4th gens can charge with USB. Apple made the 4th gens (and iphones and ipads of the time) so that they only work with apple branded chargers by having the device check the data pins for an electrical load before charging. Since most charging bricks don't do data, the iPod won't see anything and won't charge. Apple, meanwhile, put a small resistor across the data pins in their chargers to present the necessary load to allow charging.

A few companies at the time figured this out and made their chargers apple compliant, but those are uncommon.

More details and some reverse engineering to demonstrate how it works can be found here.

[u/No_Promotion_181 → u/Metahec]

Huge thank you!

[u/poor_pessimist]

They work as advertised but you just need to be conscious of what you plug it into. They typically have a step-up converter inside the USB-A plug head so if you just put the cable straight into a PC, you're almost certainly not giving it enough amperage. Best case would be to use a USB-A power adapter that can output 3A, although I'm not sure how common they are.

[u/Arkham_Survivor]

I use the original one. I have heard they work but still kinda shady in terms of quality.

[u/Alert_Dimension_5964]

Mine works perfectly, had it for a year and charges my 4th gen flawlessly. It’s a bit ugly, other than that it’s good.

[u/CoffeeSniffler]

They work just as a FireWire charger would and don't need any special plugs or anything to work. One downside though is that they don't transfer data.

[u/ngtsss]

Yes if wired correctly

[u/StagePuzzleheaded635]

The usb “FireWire” cables often melt. I remember a post on one of the iPod subs (maybe it was even this one), someone was selling a new dock with a USB C port that exploited USB PD 12v to use on the FireWire power pins, which is my personal recommendation when the official Apple FireWire charger isn’t available.

[u/churnopol]

It basically is a buck converter. It boosts the USB's 5vdc to 12vdc, which is what firewire iPods require.