Dongle Hider

[Edward_Gray]

Those look nice.

Is there an energy hit when sleeping or off, as there is with the standard USB-A adapter?

[MJ1]

@Edward_Gray

Is there an energy hit when sleeping or off, as there is with the standard USB-A adapter?

Didn’t Framework fix the USB-A energy drain (via firmware)?

[Moe_Wigs]

@MJ1

Didn’t Framework fix the USB-A energy drain (via firmware)?

I believe they did.

@Edward_Gray

Is there an energy hit when sleeping or off, as there is with the standard USB-A adapter?

I haven’t noticed anything, but, I’m not really looking.

[Edward_Gray]

Regarding an energy hit, I definitely updated firmware on the Displayport adapter. The last I remember was discussion for the HDMI adapter, but not a release of firmware.

I don’t remember anything for the USB-A adapter. There was a community member attempting a hardware solution, though.

If someone has the links for updated firmware, I would appreciate a follow-up reply.

Old eyes and cell phones don’t always work well together, to find links.

[MJ1]

@Edward_Gray

If someone has the links for updated firmware, I would appreciate a follow-up reply.

The latest BIOS should have it.

Passifying the USB-A Card

Just a note on this overall. If you’re running the latest BIOS (and if you use HDMI or DP, you modify the HDMI or DP Expansion Cards following the new instructions), you should no longer see higher power consumption with USB-A plugged in.

But from one report in that thread it may not be fixed 100% yet.

BIOS guide

[ShearMe]

@Moe_Wigs shut up and take my money

[Moe_Wigs]

@ShearMe

shut up and take my money

Very droll.

[Y11]

Any chance Framework will make a dongle hider card? Or is someone else selling it?

The only other laptop I’m considering, the Thinkbook 16 G4+ has this little flap which hides a recessed USB-A port for dongles, and I’m irrationally smitten with the thought of having my Logitech Unifying receiver neatly tucked away (without me having to spend hours doing some hack job to come up with my own dongle hider contraption).

[Moe_Wigs]

I have a Thinkbook 14 G4+, it’s an excellent laptop. The ethernet port is very tight though, I need to take the bottom plate off and file the latch slightly, so it opens a little more, but not be too loose.
Or make a hider yourself, it’s simply a usb to usb c adapter removed from its case, a bit fiddly to do, especially if it’s a metal case. I don’t think a normal printer would cope, the usb surround looks quite thick on the photos, but, top and bottom are less than 0.5mm thick. It’s essentially a recessed USB A port. And, all my enclosures slide and lock together using rails and tabs, no need for any screws or fasteners. Which, is why nylon is the perfect material.

[Moe_Wigs]

This is a new version of my previous hider, the old one was too shallow and the braces were too flexible. I can’t edit my old post to update it, so I’ll post it here. The narrower braces are made to fit against the back wall.

dongle hider.stl (899.7 KB)

[andypiper]

@Moe_Wigs

Here is the true dongle hider I made, so no more removing or filing down dongle cases to fit.

Can you share an STL file for these, they look great!

[Moe_Wigs]

I don’t have the STL for these, I already explained how I lost them. These were printed months ago, but I hadn’t figured out how to remove the adapter from the metal case without damaging it. You can see from the first image how rough the removal turned out, I damaged the rubber protective coat, until, I developed a way to free them without damage, it’s a fairly long process, which I wouldn’t like to do too many times, involving a file and a lot of effort. The other type of case, above, I edited from the the upload I’d previously made.

[Benn]

Hey ,
just had an idea how to make a true dongle hider. How about we could create a PCB that includes some kind of USB switch IC, then we could solder the logi (unify or bolt receiver PCB) directly into place and hide it inside the module while also having a free usable USB A port on the module.

I opened one of my bold receivers and the PCB for it looks like this:

Greetings,
Ben

[Adrian_Joachim]

@Benn

then we could solder the logi (unify or bolt receiver PCB) directly into place and hide it inside the module while also having a free usable USB A port on the module.

Why not go one step further and just put it inside the laptop?

My current plan is to steal the usb off the fingerprint sensor I am never gonna use anyway and put the receiver into the laptop. Don’t have my framework jet but I did that on my t480s and it work great.

Keep in mind that thing does draw quite a bit of power though (and it doesn’t seem to sleep right) so with a more modern amd cpu that may make idle power signifficantly worse

[Peter_Schofield]

@Adrian_Joachim

Why not go one step further and just put it inside the laptop?

metal shell creates a faraday cage and kills the signal.

[Adrian_Joachim]

@Peter_Schofield

metal shell creates a faraday cage and kills the signal.

You sure there aren’t enough holes to make it work? The t480s has a lot of metal too and that works just fine.

[gido5731]

Just scrolling through this, it’s surprising to me that no one has put a USB hub chip into one of these so that there’s still a USB port on the other side, I don’t see why you couldn’t (I’m assuming there are relatively compact usb hub chips for sale, but I might be wrong)

[Benn]

Today i received two USB-A Expansion Cards for testing and it looks like that a unifi or bolt receiver would fit toghether with a USB 2.0 switching IC. I might try it with the TS3USB221
from Texas Instruments.

[Y11]

What a cool idea! Please share how it goes, I’d love to have a two in one card with the receiver and a USB-A port.

[LA-MJ]

Seconded, this would eliminate the need for multiport cards for me