I think a version that has a slightly thicker top would be fine, theres some room to hang under the laptop.
I thought about reversing the card so the PCB is at the bottom but I think itās better to have the more vulnerable part on the laptop-side and the more resilient part with thicker plastic on the bottom so itās less likely to be damaged 
.
I think thereās enough room to have a slightly thicker (<0.25mm) top and itāll still fit in.
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If you can do it as a flat sheet, a laser cut mylar could work. Then you donāt need additional material to prevent the metal sheet from shorting against stuff that is below it.
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I did just print a flat piece with folding marks tonight, looks surprisingly okay for a first draft (besides the not too good quality) .
I have to refine the way the screws are placed since they canāt go completely through the whole assembly. Probably with some metal-inserts and countersunk screws .
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I have to say, this is a rather fantastic project. Well done. Depending on the thickness of the lid you could attach it using tabs that click into the body at the ends, if you check some of my module cases you can see how I did it, or I could send you a file of a blank case with just the tabbed lid and body.
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Thanks!
Thatās also a nice idea, did you publish the design files somewhere? 
The lid is quite thin tho (currently 0.3mm), but it might get some thicker parts where the components allow it to make it a little stronger.
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Wow, this is coming along fast! Keep up the good work.
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@tbe
Not specifically of the fastening, but you could probably see from some of the images Iāve posted. Iāll get some close up screen grabs tomorrow, so you can see for yourself.
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So, this is how I fastened the lid to the body without screws. Tabs on the lid lock into the recesses on the body.
I also had to split the back on one module because the board was locked in at the front of the case.
You may be able to produce a frame with tabs at the ends or middle and use a thin piece of aluminium sheet as the lid to provide more room. The sheet would make the top very rigid.
Also, if you are planning to sell these, you could use a print service such as Weerg to make the cases from nylon, which is more durable and you can print smaller tolerances. Printing several at a time would be pretty cost effective and you could have them dyed a silver or grey.
Anyway, it was just a thought. Iām not entirely sure of the dimensions involved. You can usually fiddle about with things and come up with a solution. When Iām designing a case for a module, the end result is often quite different from the initial idea as things you didnāt consider occur along the way.
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OK, so I had a thought after looking at the case you printed and had an idea. The top and front could be a single piece that slides onto the body, itās not dimensionally correct and is only an idea, it would definitely print well in nylon, I donāt want to bang on about nylon but itās such a good material for these types of projects.
test.stl (158.1 KB)
One more.
test2.stl (795.1 KB)
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I read through the thread and might have missed this, but does this project support two fully-featured USB 4 ports including displayport alt mode on both ports? If only a subset of features, which subset and other limitations are there on the ports?
USB 3.1 Gen1 (5 Gbps), no DisplayPort, no charging (no USB-PD).
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Iām curious if thereās any idle power draw measured with this!
Amazing project 
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The pure idle, so only power connected, is around 2mA, so about 10mW. Iām not sure tho how much power it draws when itās connected and does its stuff.
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My current design looks like this:
Two threaded metal inserts go into the bottom and everything is held in place by two flathead bolts. To assemble it the small daughter board goes in first, then (separated by two spacers at the mounting holes) the main board on top and finally the lid.
The design is a little too flimsy to print it on my FDM machine so I ordered a prototype made with MJF and SLS printers (these are powder based) and will have a look how they look, feel, fit and perform. In more than a few quantities the price will be around 3ā¬ per enclosure, thatās an okay price I think (not sure how much a custom colour will be additionally tho).
To get a quote on the electronics parts Iāll have to touch up the documentation and BOM a little. My goal is to get a quote for a tiny production run of maybe 50 units and hope they can be reasonably priced (and hope someone buys them
).I thought about either running a kickstarter campaign or something when I know in what ballpark the expenses will be, or just throw in my own money (like in the past
), because Iām not sure if that kickstarter thing is worth the effort (plus since they also want their cut itāll be most likely more expensive that way).
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Assuming the price isnāt stupid high, Iām onboard with purchasing one.
Once you have an idea for pricing it might be best to do a pre-order type thing, have people pay in advance, and then ship? Iām not sure what legal implications there might be there or things like that though. Worth looking into I think.
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So this will be perfect for the left and right bottom ports on the framework 16, which only support usb3.2 as it is.
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I will buy one!
EDIT: Sorry, I have to cancel my order for Framework as ny financial situation changed. Please donāt count me in.
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Count me in too
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