6 HN users recommended this explainer5 months2023–2026score 5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Linked whenever people ask why a Thunderbolt cable costs so much; the CT scans show the construction difference clearly.
Adam Savage and engineer Zach Radding examine Lumafield CT scans of Apple's $130 Thunderbolt 4 cable alongside cheaper USB-C cables. They explain the internal components that distinguish Thunderbolt from ordinary USB-C.
“if you're interested in why the Thunderbolt cable costs more than charging cables, some folks put one through a CT scanner recently” (HN, 2023)
Bit of a stretch to call that a "charging cable." Their 240W rated 2 meter USB-C charging cable is $30 [link] But if you're interested in why the Thunderbolt cable costs more than charging cables, some folks put one through a CT scanner recently: [this video]
You might want to see Adam Savage’s video about why, say, Apple’s $130 3’ Thunderbolt cable (the pinnacle of cables) actually is not overpriced. It also gives a sense as to what a quality cable is like. [this video]
For those interested, this video shows scans of what is inside Apple’s cable vs cheap cables off Amazon. [this video] For those who prefer to read and want to look at the scans in more detail, that can be found here: [link]
Scans of Apple cable internals versus cheap Amazon cables
[this video] Maybe you could consider Apple cables to be overengineered , but I can readily understand why a cable built this way - irrespective of manufacturer - is not overpriced . And it's not just about a chip. The cable is simply factually better on every metric than the hand-soldered 4 wire el cheapo one at 15~16 min. There is no cult in that. Now if one only needs to carry USB 2.0 speeds or a limited amount of power it'd be ridiculous to buy a 100+ or even 50+ cable. That doesn't make the cable overpriced either, merely overspecced for that use case.
Shows the cable is better on every metric than cheap ones
Adam Savage (Myth Buster) did a video on why Apple Thunderbolt-4 is so expensive ($130), by looking at the detail in construction vs cheap alternatives. [this video]
Explains why Thunderbolt cable is expensive by comparing construction
Lumifield quite recently showed on Adam Savage's Tested again, with some literal insights on a reasonably-diverse array of different 18650 cells: [this video] It's a good watch, and I learned some new stuff about some things that I only knew a little bit about before.
Lumafield CT scans of different 18650 battery cells
As a knotable person myself, this is AMAZING. Some thoughts on application of this knowledge would be to look at the patterns as you have described as cross-sections of rope weaving with the circular looming as the individual bobbins/spinny-things in an industrial loom - so rather that just woven-sheeth and full spin style cabling, one might achieve some really incredible properties in the woven elements along a axis such as these represent. Especially if you further differentiate btwn material and woven state (Are you weaving in an already spun set of filiments? What are the materials for the various inputs, and even further - imagine you have a set of elements in the loom where youre certain threads are the static, more rigid scaffold - like woven titanium strands which then feed into another loom which is weaving in the kevlar or other materials including a core of optics which is protected by the outer woven sheath from these patterns of 2D knots stretched out along an axis - certain elements can be printed such like the articulating spine of a snake. It could make a machinable-high-tensile strength cable with an optical core with protected turn radii (titanium snake spine) See here for reference to advanced cabling: [this video]
That tickled a memory of a video... and I hunted it up. Adam Savage's Tested : Look Inside Apple's $130 USB-C Cable - [this video] (1 minute in "we've been saying that our phones have more computing power than the Apollo guidance computer but I'm positive now that this cable has more computing power than the Apollo guidance computer") That video is a look at cables (not just Apple's) with Lumafield's CT Scan.
CT scans of cables, with a funny Apollo computer comparison
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
8 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more