Dell Dock D6000 Replacement cable

So I moved my desktop while the cable was still inserted and totally busted the USB-C wire.  So for posterity, I cut it off and then opened the wiring.  My annotated version can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/g5a8Qx4

In case the image hosting service deletes the image here is the layout, from the outside in:

1. Outer PVC/TPE Coating (or whatever rubber-type polymer they use).

2. Metal Braid (likely for shielding)

3. Stranded ground wire.

4. Foil shielding with the rest of the wiring inside.  Nylon strands permeate throughout the wiring inside of this foil, which I had to cut away so that all wires were visible (and by accident shortened the violet wire when I wasn't paying attention while snipping).

5. Very thin wires (likely ~32-34 AWG) with the following colors:

1. Red
2. Dark Blue
3. Violet
4. White & Green twisted together

6. Five sets of individually foil-wrapped wires, with the following setup inside the foil:

1. Black wire (likely 24 AWG)
2. Four sets of dark green/light green twisted wires that are probably ~30-32 AWG (thicker than the colored wires above in #5 above, but thinner, even combined then the black wire above).  Together they are probably ~24-26 AWG in thickness.

What stood out to me is that when I tried to look up other USB C wire layouts it looks like there is no yellow cable, which I believe is for Power Deliver, so I don't think these are PD cables.  

Perhaps someone who knows more about wiring could identify them? 

I'll see if I can strip out the PCBs and see which pins the wires connect to.

Also, has anyone tried https://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-USB-Type-Cable-Meter/dp/B0157RW5R6?

Dell sells it on its website.

I am having the same issue where the USB-C plug is broken so I cut the plug and stripped the cable that goes to the doc. Based on the picture provided by ggodfrey01 I was able to identify mine and managed to attached to a USB 3 cable that I had and the doc works, of course, you can't use the charging function and supports only 2 screens via USB but it works until I figure out how to find a usb-c compatible cable.

I connected the following cables, colors on the right are from my spare USB 3.0 cable

black to red

shielding/ground to black

white to white

green to green

violet to violet

I have 3 cables left on my usb 3 cable that are not used: orange bleu and yellow

On the usb-c cable that goes to the doc, I did not use any of the ones wrapped in green foil, the blue and the red one.

hope this helps and maybe someone can find a usb-c cable that is compatible.

@ggodfrey01

I accidentally threw away my busted plug. Did you by any chance sliced open yours to see if there is a cop or something inside other than the wire connections?

thanks,

@andreipasca I ended up stripping the 90 degree cable as well and I got both PCBs open.  It turns out that the dark/light green in the foiled cables must be an outer shell, as different colored wires emerge into the PCB.  My current wire stripper tops out at 22AWG.  I need to run to home depot anyway and I'll see what I can pick up there, but my guess is that they top out at ~30-32 AWG so I may not be able to strip everything.

In any event, here are the photos.  I started a table to try to compare them, but am only part way through.  I have to say, the placement of the wires changes between the 90 degree and normal port, so it looks like a custom wire by Bizlink.  I'll see if I can put my table up and annotate these photos this weekend, but here are the raw images for now.

Note that when I was removing the epoxy on the 90 degree plug the small red wire got pulled out.  It would have gone on the far left plug of the VB side of the PCB.  You can see it under the epoxy.  Also on the normal pin I was trying to remove the epoxy before I realized that it was epoxy, so it is more difficult to see the coloring of the wires underneath.

https://imgur.com/a/SqccSNb

Also, a bunch of the grounds on the outside of the foiled part got pulled out.  I'll try to put it all together.  I saw that you can try to boild them to get the epoxy off, so I'll try to do that when I get a chance.

Hah, I came here to find out the same.  Dock was pulled off the table bending the adapter beyond use, took it apart in hopes of replacing the cable but none of the multitude of cables I have work.  I'm guessing they just crossed over a couple wires but I suppose we'd need someone with a working cable (and a tester) to see if that's the case.  Of course even with that information we'd have to be able to make a cable the same way.

Here's hoping someone can figure it out but not holding my breath.  What's frustrating is I'm sure Dell did it this way so that people would have to buy a new dock when this inevitably happens, since they used a hard-wired cable.  Who does that anymore?

I am having the same issue - the cable's connector got busted (laptop fell from the desk being attached to the dock). Wondering if there's an update on this issue? Would be good to have a PN for the replacement cable or any word from DELL Support on how to fix it. Obviously they made this inner connection plug-and-play for a reason rather than being soldered, right?

1. The cable connector on the insde looks like USB-C but if you rotate the connector 180 degrees inside the unit it no longer works so I don't think its a standard USB C connector.  I've tried 100W USB C cables and they dont work but the fact the cable works one way but not the other indicates to me its not USB C cable

   if I plug the inside connector into my laptop and then the outside connector into the hub connector it behaves the same way on the HUB connector (ie works one way but not the other with the non-right angle connector having to be rotated)

   I have a partially broken cable - I bent the connector so much it popped out the retaining clips - so it generates errors , sometime wont allow three displays - but I can get it to work if I hold the connector just right.

    I can see is the cable is not field replaceable as it will not pass through the hole in the case so you would have to cut the case to replace the cable. In other words I dont think Dell will sell the cable - and since it is does not behace as standard reversible USB C on the inside connector I see to resolution to this other than you can find a broken hub - without a broken cable .... you'd be able to fix this (albeit with a cut in the case)

    

Did you find a solution? I am in the same boat. In Australia as well. 

You would think so. Really hoping they make a cable to sell to the public soon.

Not sure if anyone is still following this, but testing out the cable, I noticed that the Tx/Rx pairs are swapped from a regular USB-C cable. As in, you'd expect the cable to go from Tx1 -> Rx2, Tx2 -> Rx1, but instead, it's Tx1 -> Tx2, Rx1 -> Rx2. Sorta like a USB version of a crossover cable. I'll try and find a place that sells these but no guarantees.

Definitely still following and in need of a cable.  I'll be amazed if anyone actually sells such a thing but at least knowing how it differs is a great start!

If that's the only difference it also drives home the point that the only reason this cable is different is to keep people from easily replacing it when the cable gets damaged so that they have to buy a new one.  

Anyway, appreciate the effort so far for sure!

Some bad and good news:

The USB cable that comes on the dock is proprietary and doesn't even follow USB standards, so there's a very low chance that an off-the-shelf cable exists already.

I was curious and wired the breakout boards on a breadboard to match the original cable, then used some regular USB-C cables laying around, and it surprisingly worked! I didn't expect this as USB 3.0/3.1's SuperSpeed signals can get incredibly fast and use differential signals, and breadboards typically have some internal impedances that would prevent this from working. So far, I've tested out connecting the dock to a USB drive and to headphones, and both work just fine.

I've included some pictures here and a layout of the wiring: https://imgur.com/a/UuosIai

Next steps would be to see how difficult it is to get a custom cable manufactured. If it's too difficult to get a cable made, I can fairly easily lay out an adapter board and have that made for cheap. 

That's great to hear!  I don't know how to go about getting cables/adapters made but would certainly love to buy one (an adapter especially). 

Even if there was some requirement to buy a certain number of pieces to get it manufactured, based on the ebay listings I've looked at I'm sure there would be a market