Dual USB-C Expansion Card

Tbh, I’m here so I can preorder such an expansion card. The less dongles I have in my home, the better, lol.

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What would be awesome, if this exist usb 3. But no need for something like Displayport functionality, or charge functionality, Maybe that can be an upgrade down the line, for now I would be happy with just 2x USB-C as is.

I’m pretty sad that the expansion ports are ~just~ too small for a couple usb-A ports. It would be so handy!

Based on the description I don’t think it’s adaptable for this use-case, but nevertheless the images of this tool caught my eye: USB-Cereal | Crowd Supply

Please add a bit more space in-between the ports. Otherwise, you might not be able to use two things at the same time. Think flash drives and other bulky things.

Presumably there will be more space to the outside with the next port-centered card. On the other hand don’t over-do it either, or you’ll run into the same issue. :wink:

Apple rams theirs together, which is why there is a whole market of offset USB-C adapters and short extensions.

Personally I’d love to see a dual port card that matches their spacing to allow compatibility with all the 3rd party accessories available.

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I’ve yet to receive my Framework laptop so I don’t have an expansion card in hand to measure, but I found this hub online that supports PD as well (looks bigger than the expansion card) but might server as inspiration on how to use the same ICs.

https://www.delock.com/produkt/64044/merkmale.html

I also have this (very old) USB2 hub from Logitech (logitech H-UD5a) which also has a small form factor. Again, could use as inspiration on how to make at least 2 type-c USB2 ports for peripherals. or a Type-C and Type-A. As it’s a 4-port hub, I’ve read here somewhere you can combine 2 USB2 traces together to make one USB2 Type-C reversible port. So from 4 ports you can keep 1 USB port as normal Type-A, take 2 other ports and make them into a reversible Type-C and leave the 4th one unused.

Will definitely look into it more as I’m also interested in making my own circuits as a hobby :smiley:

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It supports PD because it only has one USB-C port - the rest are USB-A. One USB-C port is easy, it’s 2+ that power delivery becomes difficulty, I thought.

Yeah, hence you keep that one PD USB Type-C and turn other 2 Type-A into one Type-C without PD.

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I’m hopefully going to revive this, its going to be expensive and will only have one PD port with USB-C 3.1gen2 and a standard USB-C 3.1gen2 port, along with this I will have a hub with DP, HDMI, USB-C + PD, USB-Cx2, USB-A 3.1gen2 and 2.0, audio and gigabit ethernet.

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@Josh_Cook

Die you manage to do something with this project?. I’m kind of invested because I want a vertical dock like the brydge macos/surface docks for a clean desk environment.

Basically I’d want this module and a compatible dock so I have a 0 visible cable desk.

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Hi, not sure if this has brought up before, but I don’t see why we can’t have at least one of our modules splitting the original usb-c into two usb-c ports. There’s enough space to do so! Not sure technically speaking how that might affect charging, but even then, it could be an option for other connections and gaining an extra port in the process.

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From what I understand it is difficult to fit a breakout board in the module. It might also be difficult to fit two cables side by side, although I might misremember that from the suggestion to fit a USB A and C on a single card.

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@kippie_koppie No problem fitting two C-s side-by-side, the remark you read was about fitting two A-s.

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The issue with dual C is the electronics required to enable charging on either port without backfeeding power out the other and the size of the resultant pcb.

The issue with dual A is the physical size of two A ports side by side.

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@Peter_Schofield I don’t think that it should be a hard requirement to be able to charge through either of these twin ports (we can use an original single-USB-C extension card for that, on a different slot). So this removes a constraint, and there shouldn’t be the problem you mention if they are used for less power-hungry applications than charging the laptop.

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The people at frame work did try doing a Dual C card and there wasn’t enough space for the controller etc that was required.
I believe they wanted too if they could.

@agentcrm Ok I understand the challenge, and that they couldn’t do it within the constraints they had, but I also firmly believe that a big part of these constraints is driven by costs, and that it is still “physically possible” although maybe for a price they don’t want their customers to bear… (e.g. they would have to make their own ASICs etc)

I must say that after using the Framework for several months I would rather replace two card slots with 4 fixed USB-C ports in a future revision of the Framework chassis. See Idea: Add 4 fixed USB-C connectors in place of 2 Expansion Card bays - Creators & Developers - Framework Community

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I would definitely buy a few of these modules.