I have been battling this problem since Type C USB; where can i get a y cable that charges AND allows an FTDI serial cable tethering at same time??? I just received yet another today, it is a type C y cable, has type C charger input and type A female for data. and yet, while I can make it do data on the Y cable, and I can do charging on the Y cable, I CANNOT do both at same time!!! If I use data with FTDI, it works fine right up to point where I attach charger, then I get charging only, lose data path. If I cycle FTDI, no change, still only charging.
Really this is a discussion of using or integrating a tablet into a car and making the assumption that a tethered serial connection to Realdash is the best option. In this case, if tablet is somewhat permanent, one would want the tablet to be charged all the time, rather than to have to undock and charge it constantly. I think wireless charging is a poor option for this.
In usb 3.x and type C connection, it is clearly a supported option, it is crazy that the USB org or the tablet/phone vendors did not think more people would expect this to be simple. So far, I have only found 1 option that sort of works by company called Lava Computer Systems in Canada. I am still doing experiments, will post updates, but it is sort of expensive.
Jani, I think you are correct however; the correct solution will be a hub of some sort with UDP charging;
Late to the conversation here, but this is a really annoying issue I dealt with when trying to use real dash for my primary instrument cluster in a project car. Finding a Tablet that supports charging and data is nearly impossible and purely a design choice on the manufacturers, which seems silly. My iPAD pro will do it all day long, but most android devices will not. In the end I decided to use an Android radio head unit because it has dedicated 12V constant and 12V keyed wires into the automotive harness. I just didn’t hook up the antenna or speaker wires. Some of the newer units are very slim and don’t need a full DIN slot to install in to.
UPDATE- so it seems that USB type C is much more complicated than it should be. In any case, there are 3 layers of connection device detection that occur each time a real type c is connected, and PD (power delivery) is one layer. a class of device that reports as a “charging” + “serial” device needs to be included in the tablets enumeration stack.
There is a company called LAVA that makes a charger/usb y cable connector, but it is only supported on certain tablets. the ones you find on Amazon that are not Lava will not work. Samsung tablets that support this class are listed here https://lavasimulcharge.com/lavasyncplus-compatibility-list/ . They have done the heavy lifting here, discovering all the tablet devices that support this function. Good luck here, choose carefully.
Just following up on this topic in case anyone interested.
Just received my HP USB-C dock and it works.
I am able to simultanously charge and receive/send data throu the CAN adapter. The only trick is that you need to connect the dock to the tablet, then connect the CAN adapter to the dock and finally connect the charger to the dock.
If you connect the charger first, it won’t work.
HP USB-C Travel Hub G2 dock (HP Product no: 7PJ38AA)