I looked around but didn’t see anyone else doing this yet. I just finished up my first prototypes of a touchpad spacer. I personally wanted the following:
Black anodized aluminum.
A double spacer (removes one crack in the palm rest)
Stainless steel (stiffer) spacer.
A wood veneer spacer (can be stained whatever you want.)
Once I get tolerances perfect on the plastic parts I will upload some pictures.
Does anyone have any other requests? Preliminary pricing seems to indicate that at low quantity orders they would be about $35 each before shipping. Is that too much?
Finally, Once I make up my costs for design I will open source the design and vendors.
Transparent could be tricky as I don’t feel like polishing plastic. Maybe laser cut purple acrylic would be the way to go?
In other news, first prototype of a wooden (Maple) one: (Having trouble holding tolerances on such thin wood with my cnc… It tends to warp during machining. Has a decent panel gap and warped up a bit.)
Odd thing is, the wood one feels stiffer than the stock framework aluminum one. (I did laminate a thin piece of spring steel with epoxy in the center and a backer to help with this.) Now to stain it. I am thinking some nice walnut stain with a high gloss finish.
I like the black anodized aluminum idea. I also would love transparent plastic parts but given the trouble framework has with that I understand your hesitation. But I want clear plastic everything so bag that I would pay more than $35.
The other hesitation I have is that the only visible thing below the palm rest is a piece of (nicely laser etched) aluminum. It isn’t like you can quite see the main framework PCB. Now a fiberglass PCB would be cool. PCBWay even has full color silkscreen now!
Anyone want a fully custom printed pattern on their expansion modules? I am thinking about placing the attached “Zilog Inside” logo on one:
(Maybe solder a modern Z-80 to the underside just to make it true.)
I kinda want to play with the i2c port and see if I can add a classic lenovo trackpoint
I’d love to be able to purchase blank spacers just as raw materials for hacks. Start with a blank, cut the holes I need for an alternate touchpad, display, etc.
I dunno, maybe just a natural/clear coat and then a top coat to seal and protect? I kinda like natural wood looks, and maple is a good look.
Pretty awesome you’re using a CNC for it. What about using some vaneer roll, maybe super-wide edge banding, if you can find it? Would be tough to get the ‘roll over’ edge properly though.
Note that these are not final versions at this point, but they should be good starting points for anyone who wants to print them. I’ll publish them to printables or somewhere when they’re complete.
Nice. I’ve got some freecad / PCB designs over in GitHub - cscott/TouchpadSpacerFW16: Touchpad Input Module parts for the Framework 16 laptop but also untested. The little tabs on the touchpad spacers are really tiny, I like how you’ve replaced that feature with a wedge shape. That should make it more durable and easier to print if it works. For my part I really wish Framework would sell the plastic bit it glues to the back of the touchpad spacer, that would make it much much easier to make your own out of whatever 0.8mm stock you’ve got around.
Here’s the bottom of that spacer. 3d printed parts are in the git repo above. That’s a 3mm round x 1mm magnet, and some 8mmx1.5mm rubber bumpers glued on to provide a solid but compliant fit.
The repo also has a “full width” PCB with no cutout, if you’d like a clean bottom without a touchpad. You can also add a cutout to that blank matching the stock framework touchpad if you like and transfer over the electronics, although I’m not too interested in spending time on that myself.
EDIT: Here’s a picture of that full-width/no-touchpad version:
