As the title states, I’ve been wondering if anyone has been thinking of just making the bottom cover deeper/thicker. I’ve seen a lot of posts of projects trying to work with the covers of the framework and mentioning a lack of space to work with. If that is a problem, then wouldn’t some more ideas work with a deeper bottom cover?
I just don’t know if that would be more effort than it’s worth due to how everything fits together though. The main reason I’ve been thinking of this is because of the ideas I’ve seen brought up here like ergonomic keyboards that need a little hump towards the middle and the possibility of a mechanical keyboard which needs a little more depth for the travel time with key presses. Is there a possibility for a deeper bottom cover for ideas like this to work even if it sacrifices a little bit of the slimness?
You can either raise the Mid plate using some screwable pillars between the mainboard and Mid plate to give more space inside. The Mid plate to mainboard and other connectors will be a limitation unless you provide adaptors.
Or lower the Mid plate as well.
In this case you’ll have to remove the corner input module locking latches from the corners of the Mid plate or allow them to drop down deeper into the new case.
You’ll need to redesign the expansion bays as well. They need to connect to the interposer at existing mainboard height and also lock the ventalation plate (with power button on it) in place so it needs to reach up to the full height of the new case.
I see, so this would probably be the main barrier to designing a new bottom cover to allow for things that would only really work with a deeper cover. That makes sense. I wish I could make a design that would theoretically work at the very least, but I’m unfortunately not that knowledgeable when it comes to things like that. Seeing so many people creating and working on new projects daily really does make me wish I could though
Having a thicker chassis is probably the only way we are ever going to have an option for a usable pointer (meaning trackpoint / thinkpad style nipple with PHYSICAL buttons) so I am all for it too.
From my perspective, always having to move an external mouse when moving with the laptop is definitely the #1 issue with the framework 16.
There are so many possibilities with a thicker chassis. The keyboard was the main interest for me, but even giving more clearance for the SSD would be nice since I’ve seen it mentioned that the SSD needs to be under a certain thickness to fit in the laptop. I don’t even think it’d end up being much thicker than it already is in order to make more projects viable.