Yes, sorry for the poor wording on the original post, I want to know how possible it would be to create an expansion card that takes in Magsafe 2. I have no idea if it can be converted to USB-C and if so how so I was wondering if anyone was looking at doing anything similar
It should be possible. Per the Wikipedia article on MagSafe, the outer two pins are GND, the inner two pins are VBUS (either 14.5, 16.5, 18.5, or 20V DC), and the middle pin is a data pin that allows the charger to know information about the charger (power usage and serial number) and output LED values for charging accordingly.
Iāve seen female USB-C boards that are programmed for a specific voltage, and while I know male boards exist as well, Iāve yet to find one (if anyone knows of any, please link to them). Basically, the way I would solve this is by getting a 20V version of a male USB-C board and hardwiring its V+ and GND pins to a 20V version of the MagSafe port. I may be overly simplifying here, but the existence of these MagSafe to USB-C cables that are hardwired for either 15V or 20V (I have linked to the 20V MacBook Pro version) leads me to believe that this should be possible.
Further update - This MagSafe to USB-C female adapter reminds me a bit of the card that was requested here, but itās still not quite the same thing.
1 Like
Keep in mind that any adapter made here will have the potential to destroy whatever port itās plugged into. Especially if the adapter has data lines connected instead of just power.
2 Likes
This would indeed be neat to see, I do agree. However, it may be prohibitively complex due to Appleās proprietary negotiation method that is built into the MagSafe technology. Effectively, there is a chip inside the MacBook that communicates with a chip inside the power adapter using that center data pin that was mentioned above. The communication is non-standard from what Iāve read, and is used to determine how much power the laptop is capable of receiving safely at any given moment. If you have a MacBook, you can observe this when plugging in the MagSafe charger (v1, v2 or v3) and noticing how the amber light does not illuminate immediately when attaching the connector. The negotiation takes place to determine the available charge level, temperature of the battery, capacity of the battery, and also takes other factors into effect such as low power mode. This ultimately gives the power adapter the āgreen lightā to pump however much power the laptop is asking for, at which point the connector will illuminate orange. Once the battery has reached a full charge, the laptop communicates with the power adapter to stop sending power, which also illuminates the light green. There is also some useful info on how MagSafe works here, where it was attempted to bring MagSafe to a Mac Mini with a DIY project but ultimately failed due to the technical complexity of this negotiation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWGFKhBQwU
Hope this helps!
2 Likes
Ever changed a worn cable on a MagSafe 1 PSU? The Cable only has 2 wires in it. There is no communication in there except to turn the led different colors.
2 Likes
Thatās intriguing @blkhawk, so presumably a MagSafe 1 expansion card could be possible, or at least easier than MagSafe 2.
1 Like
With help of expansion slots and hot swap touch pad it would be possible to add a piano keyboard, a drum machine, synthesizer. If you are someone who takes notes alot (in class etc) you can throw away touchpad and replace with small screen and stylus. Gamers could possibly attach a joystick or something. Itās just amazing
3 Likes
The idea would be the following: in the old timeās laptop had a dock feature, that would be able to add a series of extensions to the computer. What would be to have a full size bottom part that can connect directly to the Framework laptop? Imagine that instead of custom cutouts on the main chassis, we could have a full size playground with only a powered usb hub inside. Would it be easier to create this?
1 Like
I wouldnāt be surprised if this is easily doable (hell, maybe even planned) with the FW16
1 Like
There used to be an old laptop that had this. And integrated mouse that you could pop out and use, the pop it back into the laptop case when not needed.
It might be kinda neat to have a expansion module that did something similar. When not used, the mouse is tucked away as an expansion module. Click a button and it pops out and little mouse (likely shaped like the expansion module housing ) and wired into the expansion module connector. When ya are done, just click it back into place
Bonus if you can do something like this in collab with swiftpoint
It certainly would be a fun expansion card to have. Though given the small size Iām not sure how many would use it much. So Framework might not want to invest in stocking it. Feels like more of a community expansion card.
I hadnāt heard of these small swiftpoint mice before. Interesting for travel use.
I had to look up the fcc internal pics of a couple models https://fccid.io/X8Y600/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-4109666
https://fccid.io/X8Y300/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-1310660
One uses a Nordic nRF51822 Bluetooth LE and 2.4 GHz SoC. Looks like there is some open source keyboard projects that can use the nRF51822. I know ZMK can use the nRF52840. Not sure if that is similar enough that it would translate over to support for this chip. But ZMK does have mousekey support as work-in-progress.
For a wired mouse, which it seems you were suggesting, QMK has full mouse support. Though there is a limited number of optical mouse sensors that have available drivers. I converted my Steel Series 15 button mouse over to QMK and I love it. There are a couple QMK forks that supports the nrf52 series BT chips. BlueMicro is one.
You are thinking of the HP Omnibook series starting at the 300. They where way ahead of their time, and was some of HPās best engineering. I miss that HP.
Just providing for some additional details.
4 Likes
Wouldnāt a mouse be unusably small?
What might work is a trackpoint that folds into a drawer inside the module. Pull the drawer out and the nipple snicks upright and locks into position. Press a flat button (part of the bottom surface) to unlock, bend the trackpoint down into its drawer and push drawer in. Electronics can go beside the trackpoint bed.
1 Like
It would need to have a retractable structure, with some locks to fix it in the ābigger shapeā mode. Difficult to do in an useful way, but I would love to try if someone is up for the challenge.
It would be really cool, plus it could charge itself by being connected to the usb while docked and automatically connect to Bluetooth when undocked.
But what would be the point of that? In the 16" you can even put a trackpoint in the keyboard old laptop style.
I see what you did there. 
Much nicer scrolling than with a pad. (YMMV.)
Looked up what else, can see some points on Reddit.
I think the FW keyboards are too thin.
Will there be any Firewire expansion cards available?
1 Like
Welcome to the forum.
Firewire isnāt long dead?
Iām not sure that thereās enough of a market to justify it.
Framework is currently a small company, so they canāt really create everything people might want. You could create a one if you wish, though. Design files for expansion cards are on Frameworkās github.
4 Likes
Man now I am curious what nice application these days still uses firewire but also modern laptops.
I bet itās at least kinda interresting.
FireWire? 2005 called, they want their hardware back 
.
I donāt know if there are any USB to FireWire bridges, so that could be difficult/extremely expensive.
Best thing I could think about is probably Thunderbolt to PCIe and then PCIe to FireWire (with an eGPU case for example).
3 Likes