I’m also working on a Dual USB-C expansion card, with the chip that is under a NDA, which is why I was stating that it exists.
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OH!!!
Alright. Then I hope you can provide some good news at some point.
Good luck!
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36 years old. Weighing in at 12Lb some 5.5Kg
More a portable computer than a laptop 
I’ll have to find the power supply
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If it can run FreeDOS there are some cool things you can still do with it.
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DON T BUY THIS CRAP x) Was too good to be true !
Doesn t charge AND doesn t work stable when connecting for exemple a USB C cam.
Its a dumb peace of plastic 
The “good” it fites in the FW slote, it feel solide (but useless!)
SHipment for a usb module still crazy expensive
At 50€ 2 pass through USb c my dreams of modularity are gone
Anyone selling there usb C module out there?
I’ll try to place orders for my concept/prototype usb-hub-card and the components by the end of the month, I’m curious if it actually works 
. I have quite some other things to do recently so it doesn’t progress as fast as I’d like it to…
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If you want to buy a used module, I can recommend the r/frameworkmarket. If you want a new module without the high shipping cost you can check out
https://frame-parts.square.site/
both of these are unofficial, but both are committed to helping EU customers get framework parts and expansion cards cheaper.
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I’d actually love to have a similar thing but for USB-A. That way you wouldn’t have to add display port or charging, and no one would think to use a USB-A port for those purposes anyway.
Just having 4 (max) USB ports seems a bit limiting, with my current laptop for example I need 3x USB-A and 1x USB-C… if I had to connect a display in such a situation on a framework I’d be out of ports. Having a dual USB-A expansion card would be super useful.
Dual USB-A inside the card slot is a little too narrow, the entire slot is only 30mm wide (with some space lost to the sliding rails and the material thickness itself). The reference PCB width is 26mm and a single USB receptacle is 14.5mm wide. Technically a little wider since you need a center mounted one due to the height limitation, the first one I found has a total width of 17mm.
Even a center-mounted USB-C is 11.3mm (total width of the receptacle assembly) wide. You could probably cram two of those in but there would be only very little space for two connected plugs (the ones I have around here are between 11 and ~12.5mm).
That’s why I’m using two regular USB-C-ports and a weird assembly (that hopefully works, I’ll find it out ) in my prototype.
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Hey y’all! I’ve been working on a dual USB-C (USB 2.0, no PD) expansion card PCB and only just came across this thread. I’ve got a schematic and a layout, but for now I’d love some feedback on the schematic. It’s built around the Microchip USB2512B hub IC. The schematic is here and the rest of the files are in the same GitHub repo (note that it was made in KiCad 7 and won’t work with version 6–sorry about that). Anyone have feedback on both the design and usefulness of this expansion card?
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Mh, just had a quick look at the schematics but noticed something substantial: You’re shorted the USB datalines on the ESD protection IC (U102, U301, U401). Pin 1 and 6 as well as pin 3 and 4 are internally connected (as basically also shown in the schematic symbol).
But I like the structured design of the schematic.
For the PCB:
I like the decoupling for the hub-IC 
.
0.2mm vias are usually more expensive and don’t seem really necessary here.
I’d remove the copper pour on the top layer, you have an internal ground plane that you can easily access and it currently disturbs the controlled impedance of the USB traces.
You can get away with way less power vias than you used, one of those can carry around 1.5A, the traces that connect to them can withstand far less.
With the saved space you can try to bring all components to one side (for cheaper assembling costs).
I probably won’t use 0201 passives, depending on if you want to have it assembled the usual cheap Chinese manufacturers charge extra for that size and if you want to assemble it by yourself I recommend checking if you really want to deal with such small things. Also I’m not sure if e.g. 10uF caps are available in 0201 packages.
I have a prototype version of my design on the way, I’m curious if it actually works as intended. I have to assemble it by myself tho because assembly for one might cost around an arm and a leg…
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Just get 0805 10uF caps, 1uF is generally the limit for fairly cheap 0402s.
Good eye. Yes, for example if pin 1 is DP input, pin 6 should be (protected) DP output, not DN input.
I have an idea, but I am not sure of its viability.
Here is my proposal:
Would it be possible to have 2 USB-C ports to connect the modules to the system itself? Such that the electrical constraints that exist would be avoided as a dual USB-C expansion card just becomes a pass through solution. Would it also be possible to use the two USB-C inputs to increase total data throughput? For example, if there is a new DP standard released that currently exceeds the speed of a single USB 4 port, then two connectors could combine their total bandwidth to provide sufficient throughput in a single expansion card.
Any and all thoughts are appreciated.
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I believe there might be a hardware constraint at play here, each Thunderbolt controller can only handle 2 USB-C Ports iirc.
The chassis would also have to be redesigned as well as most expansion cards, so probably not very possible in the foreseeable future.
Combining 2 ports’ bandwith into a single data-stream isn’t really supported by current technologies as well. For instance, you don’t see monitors that accept two seperate HDMI inputs.
For PCBA assembly, we’ve had some quick prototypes done at places like PCBWay and found that the quality and speed are acceptable and costs are shockingly low.
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If you are trying to decide between PCBWay and JLCPCB, I’d recommend PCBWay, I’ve found PCBway to be generally a very similar price but sales reps seem to be nicer and almost always reply within an hour during their business hours. In case you haven’t seen it previously you can request reimbursement through this link https://forms.gle/uaP9kWxwcK5VZNuA8
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But for that, cannot use 6 layers… 6 layers is just exponentially more expensive, unfortunately. However, when doing in large quantities the price per item with 6 layers is actually really low. 500 pc for ~281$ (.56$ each).
But thanks for the tip. If there’s a way these people can fit it into 4 layers, it will be very cost effective. Much more than I anticipated. Maybe the concept of board and daughter-board isn’t that much of a far fetch.
6 layers is back!
This is for prototype only
Doesn’t matter. The prototypes are the really expensive part. After the prototypes, you can make extra PCBA for very cheap each. I’m sure it will sell 200 easily (even if need to wait some months). For that, the prices are very reasonable, even with 6 layers.
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