That’s an interesting device! It wouldn’t fit in a standard case unless you went for a very big case, though. The expansion slots assume the motherboard is about 3/4 of an inch off the bottom of the case, only.
I was also reminded of the Intel NUC Extreme while planning this. That’s a system that uses a case with just a simple PCIe backplane, then the CPU, RAM, etc. is on a board with a PCIe connector and card-style cooler.
GPU in front, Compute Element in back, power supply on the right. It’s an expensive-as-heck kit, though. The compute elements alone make Framework mainboards look like a bargain.
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I tried a test fit of the PCIe mount in the case, and I made a major error somewhere in measurement. It’s survivable, because hacksaws and plywood exist, but I’ll need to do some adjustments. Fixing this error also helps with the screws.
The errors give me good ideas for version 2. Let me doodle to illustrate:
A 3/4 border ITX mainboard dummy, with a slot to hold a PCIe card in place and an I/O panel blank-filler with keystone jacks, or figure out some way to strap most USB-C hubs there with zip ties or something. ITX boards are 170mm square, so it should fit fine on a typical 3D printer.
The PCIe mount itself still needs some thought. Mashing the VESA mount and the standalone case together will totally work, but it’s clunky and needs a huge printer. A perfect final version would be printable on a home printer, allow multiple orientations of the board, allow you to use a real metal slot cover.
I wish I had a laser so I could do this in plywood…
Overall, this project is surprisingly tough because the Framework mainboard was designed to be a laptop mainboard first. And that’s totally appropriate! It’s just tough, even though it’s a thousand times easier than trying to do this with any other laptop mainboard.
I’ll do some revisions and get some new prints this weekend.