Whipped this up in Fusion 360 and printed it off. Epoxied in some 5x2mm magnets, and it’s good to go. It holds two regular expansion cards, plus the ethernet adapter and the screwdriver, but if I ever buy more expansion cards I can always re-print a slightly modified one to hold more cards. Came out to 154 x 88.2 x 16.2 mm in size, and weighs 90 grams plus the weight of the magnets.
I added some epoxy into the logo cutout to make it look cleaner.
Its a pity I can’t afford to spend money on a 3d printer (I’ve broken my bank account recently with this laptop and all the accessories ), if I could afford it I’d be into printing some of those up.
Cheers, yeti.
One day when the time is right, grab a low-priced printer and have some fun. I have spent endless hours designing stuff to print. Totally worth the $300.
Nice, I’ve been wondering how people keep their expansion cards around. I have a lot so they wouldn’t fit in that crate… I just tie them up with an elastic band now, works well enough.
Yeah, I was thinking about making one already. I will design one in the next couple days and see how it looks. I was also thinking of adding in a slot to store an NVMe drive, since I keep one with a windows install on it.
Nope, they are different. The 4 card (5 with the ethernet) has stacked & offset slots. One card goes in, and then another goes on top of it but slightly to up and to the side. Have a look at the models closely and you will see they are different. The new one is also 2mm thicker to accommodate the extra cards.
That text added makes it look really nice indeed. I have no need for an nvme storage compartment so I like the first design with the epoxy in the logo the best so far. Though even with just the logo and no epoxy it still looks really good.
It is looking very much like my bank account is going to be raided again soon for a 3D printer if I keep following this thread, . The next pic will demonstrate why …
These are just the spares, my framework laptop is currently running with 1 USB-C, 2 USB-A and 1 HDMI expansion cards in use as well. I made plans for different use cases when ordering the laptop and a follow up order of expansion cards so I’ve ended up with this bunch as spares/alternatives.
I’d love to see you do a four standard size card version with the screwdriver slot; I’d bet my bank would hate the idea though
I like the idea of your design with the cards fully enclosed with magnetic holders built in; I’ll probably download your .stl files for the first one and see if I can find a 3D printing service in my area. I really like the looks of these designs.
Good work, and getting better going by the last one with the text included.
FYI I was able to print from Xometry using economy service and standard PLA prototyping material the 2 card and Ethernet design for approximately $6 USD with free shipping after finding a $25 USD promo code.
Oh, my mistake. I see it now! Smart way to maximize space around with Ethernet card. I think I’ll have to try printing this.
I would probably keep a thin (foam) pad between the cards. Think there would be room?
NVMe slot - Nice addition especially the space for your thumb to grab the screwdriver or memory card.
I don’t have immediate need this either either, but I was curious and found some tests showing read/write rates for different memory locations (Frame.work’s expansion card, unspecified NVMe-to-USB converter, and internal NVMe bus). Unsurprisingly the last one is fastest. But I am a little surprised that Frame.work’s card was slightly beat by the NVMe to USB peripheral.
Hey this is a cool project, I plan to print the Ethernet+4 version soon. I have 4/5 of those slots already reserved for incoming cards. Leaves me one slot for cooking something up myself
I don’t think I have permissions to edit wiki pages yet. I can see the differences like so:
It’s primarily for the NVMe drive. The screwdriver teeters either direction so it’s easy to pick up, but the NVMe is very flat so it needed a cutout.
I actually discovered a mistake I made on just the variant with the NVMe slot. The Ethernet adapter cutout was accidentally shortened by 1mm making the card not fit at all. I fixed the issue and updated the model on Printables. Juts FYI if anyone had already downloaded it; download it again to get the right version.