High Quality Thunderbolt 3 Cable Teardown

Thunderbolt 3 cable not only can reach 40Gbps data transmission speed, but also supports 100W power delivery. Although the devices with Thunderbolt port are not very popular at present, for users who are looking for speed, buying Thunderbolt 3 cables is still indispensable.

Next we will teardown ByteCable Thunderbolt 3 cable. The cable is very strong and durable, and the charging speed and data transmission are also very good. Let us start!

Table of Contents

Thunderbolt 3 cable appearance

Both ends of the Thunderbolt 3 cable are USB Tpye-C port, and the cable is black.

The Thunderbolt 3 cable is about 60cm, which is thicker than ordinary data cables.

The two USB-C ports are frosted to increase friction and facilitate plugging and unplugging, and both have the Thunderbolt 3 logo.

The junction of the cable body and the USB-C port adopts anti-bending treatment, and cable has the words “100W”. The other end is the same design.

In the details of the USB-C port, there are a total of 10 pins.

Using ChargerLAB POWER-Z KM001C to detect, it shows that the cable has an E-Marker chip, and the power transmission capacity is 20V/5A.

Because the POWER-Z KM001C tester does not define the data part of the Thunderbolt 3 wire, it is displayed as USB-C 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps), the actual data transmission capacity of this cable is 40Gbps.

The actual charging test uses a 100W charger to charge a 100W power bank. It shows that the charging voltage is 18.9V, the current is 5.0A, and the charging power reaches 95W. The test shows that the cable supports 100W charging, and the cable works normally during charging.

Thunderbolt 3 Cable Teardown

Cut the plastic on the USB C port, and there is a layer of copper foil inside.

The inside of the port adopts a two-stage metal steel sleeve design. There are many small solder joints on the edge of the steel shell. The back is also the same as the front, which is very firm.

Remove the steel sleeve, you can see 8 cores are neatly arranged and welded.

There are black plastic holders on both sides of the PCB on the back, and there is a chip in the middle. This is the E-Marker chip, and the periphery is protected by glue injection.

The E-Marker chip records the detailed information of the cable.

There are 10 pins on the port, and the middle two pins are left blank.

The other end port of the Thunderbolt 3 Cable. The only difference on the other end of the cable port is that there is no E-Marker chip on the PCB.

Cut a section of the plastic sheath of the Thunderbolt 3 Cable, you can see a shielding net composed of many filaments, and the core is wrapped with a layer of plastic film.

Tear off the plastic film, the inside is designed as a coaxial cable, with a total of 17 cores in two layers.

Separate the cores, the outer layer is a total of 9 cores of different colors, and the inner cores are wrapped in tin foil.

Tear off the tin foil, there are a total of 8 cores and tensile fibers inside.

From left to right: plastic sheath jacket , plastic film, metal shielding net, tin foil shielding layer, data and power cores, and tensile fibers.

After all the teardown is complete, Let’s preview.

Summary

The Thunderbolt 3 cable is very durable, with anti-bending design at both ends, and matte design at the port for easy plugging and unplugging. Bytecable tested that its power delivery is 20V/5A, and its data transmission reaches 40Gbps. The actual charging test shows that the cable supports 100W charging. There is an E-Marker chip on the PCB of one port of the cable, and the PCB inside is protected by glue. So this is a high-quality Thunderbolt 3 cable.

If you want to wholesale the Thunderbolt 3 data charging cable, Contact ByteCable by emial sales@bytecable.com.