I’ve been working on this idea for a little while now (basically all conceptual at the moment until I have time to properly design the pcb and whatnot) but basically having a network switch built into the back of the laptop.
At the moment I have settled on having a 2.5gb internal nic for connecting directly to the laptop as well as 1x 2.5gb uplink port and 4x 1gb ports on the exterior of the device. Originally I wanted all 2.5gb but due to the availability of various chips it is just not possible for an individual to develop something at those speeds.
The issue I am trying to solve at the moment is the case for this module. I would love to be able to reuse the expansion bay cover module as its a fairly complicated part and most people will already have one plus it already comes with fans. The problem with the expansion bay cover is that its cutout for custom I/O is too small for rj45 ports which is inconvenient. I thought of creating a daughter board that is purely to house the external rj45 ports as well as a pair of USB C connectors to connect to the main control board through the opening in the expansion bay cover. My biggest concern with this is that there would be too much interference with multiple ethernet connections going through a USB C connector and having 5 individual USB C connectors doesn’t seem great. I talked on the framework discord about this some and josh cook thought it might work to just replace the plastic part of the expansion bay cover with an altered 3d printable one but it seems like quite an involved process to disassemble the cover module and I don’t have a 3d printer large enough to print that part. If anyone has any other ideas/potential solutions to this please let me know.
I have the necessary components picked out, I just haven’t created a PCB design yet. Hopefully, I can get a working board soonish, but I can make no timeline promises as I am in my senior year of high school and so I am kinda busy with life stuff at the moment.