Feature Request Megathread - Expansion Bay modules

LTE expansion card

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Has anyone said coffee grinder yet?

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What about an expansion that provides an enchanced cooling for the CPU?
For instance it would allow the internal fans spin slower and it could have more and/or other ways to cool the system.
A cooling expansion card.

I don’t know about the performance of the initial one that’s “included out of the box” but what I’m thinking about is about pushing the CPU further while still retaining low temps.

The thing is that cooling is never enough especially in a laptop. So why not make a cooling-focused expansion.

“classic” docking connector for semi-stationary use at multiple locations. Docking station with lots of connectors as desired (legacy DVI and/or Displayport and/or HDMI for use with existing monitors, ethernet, USB-A, 3,5mm headphone jacks, legacy serial ports, power) and optional active components like graphics cards.
Alternatively, a row of the small expansion slots like the six on the sides of the FW 16, as real estate to the side of the laptop is better used for other things than bulky cables.

EDIT: That’s for the FW 16 graphics extension bay, not the standard small ones.

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I have a customer who has to rely on a 2010 macbook pro because he’s a musician and is forced to use firewire. So going back and making all of these old ports accessible would be really cool

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What I really really want to see in an expansion slot 1-2 SD-Card readers and at least 1 CFExpress card reader!

When I’m out on a shoot I want to be able to copy multiple audio recorder cards (full size SD cards) and my camera card (CFexpress) onto my laptop. Yes I have my dongles and I hate that everything is a dongle! Someone make this happen plsss :pleading_face:

CFExpress type A cards are similar in shape to SD cards, not sure how different they are electrically.

CFExpress type B cards have a different physical shape.

You have to specify which is desired.

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CFExpress type A cards are similar in shape to SD cards, not sure how different they are electrically.

SD Cards usually hang off a USB bus, CFexpress cards are PCI-E AFAIK.

CFExpress type B cards have a different physical shape.

You have to specify which is desired.

My camera gear uses type B. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a type A in the wild. At least any of my colleagues cameras all also use type B

I think some Sony cameras can use CFEXPRESS type A.

Nikon is supporting Type B.

Not sure about Canon or others.

Mine are Nikons, D500, D850, and Z6.

DVI is huge. It’s like, VGA except not.

That is cool.
I don’t know about CFExpress, but I know lots of cameras use CFast. They are faster than SD cards simply because they have more pins and are larger for more components. I would imagine that they would have transitioned (more or less) given that about a decade have passed since then.

It’s also the same signaling as early gen hdmi without the audio part (for the digital version) and deepfried vga for the somewhat rarer anaolg version.

My number one wishlist item is a module containing an additional hot-swappable battery. I need this. Gosh, it would be so awesome.

And number two would just be some sort of module that would allow me to hook my laptop into a larger system sort of like a Nintendo Switch. So like, out and about I use a GPU or external battery or whatever, and the back at home I could “dock” it into some sort of system that somehow makes it just as much if not more powerful than a standard desktop computer. IDK what this would would specifically include, perhaps elements of GPU, power supply, and I/O ports? Could have them readily connected to an additional monitor or TV or something. Basically, a module geared towards at-home non-mobile use that’s not afraid to be an absolute hunk.

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That capability is already on 5 of your 6 usb-c ports. If you want to add an egpu then just the top 2 but the switch literally just uses just a usb+displayport dock.

I am aware. I’m just curious if somehow more processing power could be added to the equation.

You can hook up an egpu to the top 2 usb-c ports if that’s what you mean, or to the occulink expansion bay (community project) but that one also nees an usb connection for power and peripherals and you can’t hotplug that one.

I’d like to reiterate that the #1 thing I’d like to see developed is a hot-swappable battery expansion bay :slight_smile:

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+1 for battery & oculink.
Also, ethernet & cellular that doesn’t poke out the side of the device would be great.

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Imagine someone putting a 100gbit nic in an expansion bay just cause it’s possible.

An expansion card expansion bay with an internal USB port for dongles, expansion card slots, and ideally flush Ethernet (although the flush Ethernet would result in other issues).

This could be mostly accomplished by creating new internals for the existing expansion bay shell (which is designed to have the internals swapped to have other features such as external I/O).

Unfortunately the expansion bay shell only supports I/O up to 8.65 mm tall, just barely not enough for Ethernet. Furthermore it would not provide easy access to quickly swap expansion cards without opening up the laptop (although given that there are 6 other easily hot swappable card slots I don’t think these 3 necessarily need to be).

So to execute this idea perfectly would likely require a whole new outer shell, which would increase development costs and break compatibility with the existing shell.

Giving up on flush ethernet and easy hotswap I think that 3 expansion card slots could be put on the back of an expansion bay module pretty easily, leaving just enough room to squeeze in an internal USB port for a dongle. That is especially great considering that 4 port supporting 4 ports is pretty much the stands for USB controllers so there wouldn’t even be something non-standard needed there.

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