Some progress here.
The adapter will not be smaller then the 140w one i showed above, but it won’t be a lot bigger. The 240W Fosiaudio charger rated at 48v is weighted 0.804KG (16.5x7.8x3.5, all in cm). It is a bit heavy. But it will be quite viable to be the one that sit at your home and provide sufficient power, and use the 180W FW charger on the go. I have discussed with the designer, they said that it is impossible to make it into the size of the expansion port (Bay is possible, but why would you need that), so that route is already closed for minimalism.
And they think that a Downvolt (i guess what that is in English) is less frightening then Upvolt, thus it is the reason we are using a 48v one instead of the regular 20/19.5v laptop chargers. If we are using the 20v, the Upvolt will need a lot of work on the cooling, inevitably increase the size (by a lot). Thus the weight loss by having a 20v source will be nulled by the things that handle upvolt, and it also increase instability.
The device itself will not consume a lot of power, so do expect very minor power drop from the output, (Tho i don’t know the down volt from 48v to laptop voltage will results what kind of waste) But it will surely provide more charging power than the 180W from FW.
I guess what you have called a ‘downvolt’ would be referred to as a buck converter, whereas an ‘upvolt’ will be a boost converter.
I don’t altogether go with the logic that a buck converter is less frightening than a boost converter. There are enough converter chips around that will do both buck and boost conversion, they just don’t have the required power capability.
In that case 48V is laptop voltage, the laptop handles it from there.
You have my interest. If this turns out I will definitely be looking to get one for my desk so I can stop moving the 180w charger every time I leave.
There is a 240W charger around, albeit not yet in series production:
I have considered such thing. In order to mass produce a all in one power brick or just make it as a DIY product that can be sold in China (specifically). The investment into getting the required certification is too much. In order to get all these certification, in need to invest 10x money and build a factory. I don’t have that capability.
The key is that in order to get certification for selling any thing for 220v input is difficult, it require at least 10000 unit to be produced. But anything other (48v, 5v, etc.) is easy, there is no such ludicrious requirement for DIY. That is why we are going the adapter route.
Going illegal is not an option unfortunately.
240W PD brick will be available from major companies. But not very soon tho.
I think that into mid 2025 there may be more laptops with 240W PD. Right now though there is really nothing outside of this framework laptop.
This is part of the reason why companies don’t care to make higher wattage power adapters. Even the 140W Plugable unit that I have is not very popular on Amazon just due to the lack of people who have devices that can utilize it.
There are inline tools that allow you to read e-marker chips on USB cables.
I use this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BJ24PVNJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you don’t really want to use something like this, you could always just buy quality cables that are certified like CLUB3D cables. They aren’t braided pretty, but they’re certified to work at whatever ratings they claim (if its not a counterfeit, watch out for those). USB4 cables are kinda chunky, but work up to 240W and e-marker chip also verifies that claim.
I’m just going to echo the concerns of some others here. If it only cost $8k to develop and get a 240W adapter to market, Framework would have done it. I’d be hesitant to trust in those quotes. Assuming a salary of $150k, that’s enough to pay 1 engineer for a little less than 3 weeks of R&D.
That’s not even enough money to produce the same 5V 1A adapter as always and put it into a new case.
You can still use a fw card for charging, and this to expand the number of ports. And apart from gaming or constant high performance use, you don’t need more than 60-100W. I checked with a testet, watching YouTube in 4k with the screen set high was around 60W.
Btw the fw16 really needs 48V240W, it’s just that doesn’t exist yet.
Personally I ordered without considering the charging at all, so even the 36V seems fine. I’m probably going to use it with my kb and mouse to share a single card.
I do believe there is a 240W adapter on Mouser that one can preorder that is going to be released in December
Google wasn’t help, do you have the exact link?
I am pretty sure this is what Framework Tweeted out at some point … I can’t find the OG tweet …
Oh wow, that’s a big charger! 162 x 72 x 23 mm or 6.4 x 2.8 x 0.9 inches. Glad that something at least is coming on the market soon from a reputable brand.
Digikey has a 240W charger they should be shipping at the end of the month:
yeah I have already ordered one and wait to see how it was like. if I can sort of study what is like
I’d say for the wattage it’s okay. I’ve got several 120W and 180W single voltage barrel jack PSUs for my NUCs that are the same size.
