Expansion Bay Developer Program

That is the point of this module.

Not if you want to be able to talk to the EC or use the voltage out and vsys in, like for a battery. Or does that include an EC?

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This should be a relatively straightforward board to design if you start from the reference PCB: ExpansionBay/PCB Reference Design at main · FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay · GitHub

So what you’re saying is… build your own basic expansion board to do a breakout and do it all yourself? :wink:

Sorry to necro.
Any update on this project?

Hi Nirav! Is there any update on the EC / PD controller communication? I’d love to learn more about that for an Expansion Bay Battery.

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Also, if anyone can shed some light on this, I’m trying to help with the Expansion Bay Battery (Link 1), and aside from the EC issue, I’m trying to figure out what would be the best connection and what pinout it would all need to be.

I know we’d need to connect to pins 41-46 for V_ADP_GPU for power as shown in Link 2 and the image. For the ground (GND_ADP_GPU) pins, I think that’s 47-51. I believe I could make a small connector that piggybacks off of the current interposer connection by sandwiching itself between the interposer and mainboard. An easier and more physically stable piggyback connection would be to connect to the 8 pins on the expansion bay itself that the interposer attaches to, but I can’t find any documentation as to what that pinout is, or if that’s feasible, or even if there’s any multiplexing going on (which I’m fairly sure there isn’t). Does anyone know if there’s any documentation for that part?

Does anyone have any thoughts or input? Anything helps, I’m still learning a lot =D

Link 1: Simple extra battery for the expansion bay - #136 by Joseph_Abboud
Link 2: ExpansionBay/Electrical/Dual-channel 74P FXBeam, length 27.75mm _Rev 2_(Public version).pdf at main · FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay · GitHub

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@nrp now that the Nvidia GPU module has been announced, and it supports charging via USB C, is there any official documentation available (or, better yet, schematics!) describing the requirements for power input via the expansion bay? In addition to the linked thread discussing battery modules, this capability could also be very interesting for desktops based on the FW16 mainboard (as I’m working on designing), allowing constant power to be supplied without using up one of the USB C ports. Is simply providing the requisite voltage to V_ADP_GPU sufficient for a simple power source? Or is other negotiation required to enable that power source to be accepted (and, if so, is there any way to do that negotiation when first providing power to the system, or would such an implementation be unable to boot until a secondary power source was available)? Thanks in advance!

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I’d actually like to second this - some updated GPU schematics or the latest version of the M.2 adapter, (the current one is slightly incorrect I believe), would be super helpful.

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Let me know if this helps you and @Joe_Shapiro! As for your question regarding battery modules, there is additional negotiation and the team might need to do some firmware work on the EC to properly support this, but if you’re getting somewhere we could possibly work with you to get what you need in the BIOs to support something like this. Feel free to reach out to me if you’re making progress!

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