How to pull 5V 3A with USB-C breakout board?

Components & Accessories Power
1

I bought this USB-C breakout board (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15100). I want to use it to power my device with a 5V 3A power supply through a USB-C cable. I read the description and documentation however some details still seem fuzzy.

From what I am understanding the breakout board is currently able to pull up to 1.5A stand alone. If I wanted my device to pull up to 3A, I would need to attach a 10K pull up resistor to CC1 and to CC2? (As per section 3.1 of the documentation)

If that’s right can I just piggy back off the 5V VBUS pin for the pull up source?

Thanks!

2

Hi iBatman,

I think you may be reading a bit too much into the datasheet. The USB-C Breakout comes pre-configured to be able to supply up to 3A to a device connected to the output (VBUS) so long as the upstream device (in this case your 5V 3A power supply) can supply it.

If you wanted to play around with pull-up resistors, you would need to remove the two 5.1k pull-down resistors on the board first before adding pull-up resistors. I believe that you can piggy-back of the 5V VBUS pin as your pull-up source if you want to try.

3

The 5.1k pulldowns on the sink end (the breakout in this case) lets the source know that something is plugged in.

The pullup resistors are part of the source; they tell the sink what the maximum power available is. They should not be added to the sink.

There can also be data passed over the CC1/CC2 lines to configure higher voltages and currents, and dedicated ICs to handle this.

/mike