UKH

My wife’s Olympus Tough TG-5 is charged by connecting it to the charger with a USB micro B cable. It’s stopped charging. Looks like one of the pins in the USB socket is knackered. This isn’t really surprising as the camera has had a tough life - it’s pretty battered and looks like space junk.

I’m looking at various options: fix / replace / workaround. I have some stupid questions:

1. An alternative way of charging it is to take the battery out and stick it in a charger. This avoids all the wear and tear on the USB socket. I wish we’d done this from the start. Is this what sensible people do?
2. I’ve requested a quote for repair. If I go this route I’d like to bin the original cable in case it contributed to the problem with the socket. Can anyone recommend a source of good quality USB A to micro B cables. Seems like a bad one could be an expensive mistake and there are so many to choose from. 
3. Are the ferrite chokes actually of any use? There’s one on each end of the original Olympus cable.

Thanks.

1. I have never charged a camera with a cable, always had cameras that the batteries come out of and pop into a separate charger

2. Amazon basics are good quality cables, or if you want slightly better Lindy are good kit

3. Not really, it won't matter if there isn't one on it, its probably only there to meet some obscure EMC regulation that the EU came up with

Thanks. I look forward to buying a cable which flouts the EU regulations. Yay sovereignty. 

Sadly (for your point), the choke was there probably to meet FCC - rather than EU - regulations (they are more stringent). And those regulation relate to 'systems' - i.e., to the combination of camera and cable - rather than to the cable itself, so a single cable won't flout anything (EMC related). Oh, and strictly speaking there are no 'EU' regulation anyway - the EU (and the UK) go by the global IEC standards.

Bet you really wanted to know that!

As to your original questions...

Yes, I'd probably avoid excessive use of the micro USB connector - it's quite fragile in the real (gritty) world. Keep it covered, save it for downloading pictures (assuming no WiFi) and treat it GENTLY.