ZED-F9R pHAT board USB

I was able to connect the ZED-F9R pHAT board to the Pi 4 GB running Ubuntu 20.10 with few issues. My only complaint was that the ZED UART1 was configured with a terribly slow baud rate which prevented me from setting to 10Hz measurement rate. Other than that, thank you for the high quality device!

The board (GPS-16475, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16475) seems to come with a USB-C connector. However, I see no information in the docs regarding its use, other than schematic shows it connected to the ZED D-MINUS and D-PLUS pins. I did try a generic cable that I had to find out that definitely the board cannot be powered that way (that makes sense from the schematic I suppose). So, this begs the question, can we send inputs and get outputs over USB from the Pi? Is there a specific cable you recommend?

Don’t have one on me to try but you should be able to see the GPS as a USB serial device when installed on top of the Pi and you connect a USB cable between the Pi and hat. When I try a ZED-F9P connected via USB to a Pi it shows up as /dev/tty/ACM0.

One reason for the USB-C is to connect to a computer for u-center program!