This is a really great find, thank you!
1 Like
This is amazing and terrifying and I hope that something like this can be improved upon by the Framework team. Amazing find and amazing card… Maybe you could even sell that until one becomes available 
1 Like
For those interested in this reader but found its out of stock, this Monoprice reader seems to be identical, down to the clear endcaps.
3 Likes
@RandomUser, given the size of that port, they gonna have to use glue to keep that housing closed; which is a non starter.
Woohoo! So I bought this SD card reader (I’m sure many vendors using different names are selling the same product).
https://amazon.com/dp/B071FBSVWJ
and this file set
https://amazon.com/dp/B07FJQ9XKG
and these are my results (so far).
Getting the cover off took a bit of force, but I got it off with my iFixit Jimmy tool.
Then, I started filing down the sides and front corners of the PCB so that it would fit in the expansion card bay.
I’m sure I’ll need to file the adapter more when I put it in a proper enclosure, but for now, this is the filed down PCB side-by-side with the PCB of a USB-A expansion card.
One thing that worries me is that this SD card PCB has no structural reinforcement on the USB-C plug’s solder points, unlike the Framework expansion cards.
Here is the adapter plugged into my laptop. It’s a very snug fit, but it is in there.
And here is how it looks in normal use.
I have already sent in an order for a 3D print of an expansion card enclosure to my school’s library, so as soon as I have that I will file down the PCB even more and glue it to that enclosure (like @maybeRui did).
ExpansionCard.stl (51.3 KB)
Overall, this was a very cool find on @Lee_Holbrook’s part, and I’m super happy with it!
16 Likes
Another update. So my 3D print came in, and I filed the PCB down even more.
Here is the final size of my PCB before it was inserted into the expansion card housing. I may have gone a bit overboard on the front corners.
And here it is in the housing.
After I confirmed that the PCB fit and the USB-C port went through the hole, I took out another expansion card so I had a reference for how far out I should let the USB-C plug stick out. Then, I put super glue on the bottom and sides of the SD PCB and set it in place on the 3D printed housing.
Here is the finished result. It’s a bit more work to get it in and out, but it’s totally doable and I’m very happy with it. It even fits in my unofficial expansion card carrying case (available here), and I now have a USB-C to SD adapter that I can use with my phone too!
One downside when using this adapter in Windows is that after ejecting it, the expansion card must be unplugged and reinserted in order for the computer to recognize an SD card from it again. This is not a problem I noticed in Linux (Pop!_OS for me). Again, thank you to everyone in this thread for your findings, this is awesome!
19 Likes
it depend on the controller. if it is appearing as a mass storage device then yes the computer need to detect that the device have disappeared (from the connected list of devices) before allowing it to reconnect. some card reader I have (some chinese SSK models) have the IC configured so you need to disconnect the cards instead of the actual adapter (which does utterly nothing when plugged into the computer without a card in it)
but that’s easily solvable.
1 Like
Is this something you’d still be interested in?
This is no longer happening to me on Windows 11 OS Build 22000.434
2 Likes
Don’t eject SD’s.
-20 characters-
You should absolutely eject any removable storage, as it might not be configured for “fast removal.” If you confirm that it is configured for fast removal, you can remove it without ejecting it.
4 Likes
No and yes. If it is configured for fast removal, it does not mean that under all circumstances (even during read/write operations) removing the drive will not corrupt the drive. It just means that the drive will be ok if there are no write operations the drive can be removed because the cache (which require power) is not utilized. It will usually be a minor corruption (if any), but it could be worse.
When you eject a drive in Windows, Windows will first check to see if there is any read/write operation (and attempts to stop it, which usually fails), and then it will “demount”/uninstall (different from uninstalling a driver) the device/drive (which basically remove it from “list of attached system resource” so it can no longer be accessed). Then it sends a “stop” command to the device (which may or may not power off), and then it says “you can safely remove the device”.
Mac operates similarly, although I think it demounts instead of tries to stop read/write.
The reason you can’t eject the SD card on its own is because Windows see the entire SDcard+reader as one “mass storage device” instead of a “USB Card Reader” with an “eMMC card” attached underneath it. As a result, it will stop the entire “mass storage device” rather than stopping the eMMC card. And it will refuse to install/connect the SD card reader until it sensed that the device is unplugged and plugged in.
Usually, more “fancy” readers (such as new ones from SSK and Kingston) have them configured as a “card reader” while some old/cheap ones have them configured as “mass storage devices” that merely translates the read/write operations.
2 Likes
I made a copy of this - for me, thanks to the work and writing here, I was able to “just buy the adapter” basically. Bought that item on Amazon, then printed the bracket, chopped the edges off with some tin snips, and jammed it in there. Works a perfect treat. Twitter’s eating it up 
1 Like
Small problem: that awesome card reader seems to inhibit “Modern Standby” (reason number ten-billion why “modern standby” sucks and is just a wallpapering-over of lazy/bad coders that can’t implement proper sleep in their drivers)
Was just digging into why this dang thing is chewing through 3.5W on average while in sleep. A simple sleep study report revealed this, right off the bat.
Gonna try taking out that SD expansion card. Big sad. All just because we can’t have nice things (real standby) anymore on modern laptops, it seems…
2 Likes
What software did you use for this report?
Windows’ built-in utility.
- Open an admin command prompt
- Navigate to your desktop or whereever (
cd %userprofile%\Desktop) - Use powercfg to generate a report (
powercfg /sleepstudy) - it uses historic data to generate the report, happens instantly - Open the resulting report (
start sleepstudy-report.html) - Review results etc
For reference, mW is 1/1000th a watt (1000mW = 1W). mWh (1000mW for 30 minutes = 500mWh) is a measure of capacity (like gallons of water, vs. water flow rate as watts). 3 watts is really terri-bad for sleep power consumption! 1W is relatively typical, but still on the high side (my laptops from 2013-ish have a similar figure).
2 Likes
Ah, okay - I thought it was some Linux tool.
On Linux, we can use powertop for a similar assessment (as well as auto-tuning if you so desire).
2 Likes
don’t the USB bus power down in sleep?
Or is this reason 10,000,000,001 we shouldn’t have modern standby?
Can’t you turn off “additional sleep states” in bios?
lol nope. The computer doesn’t “actually sleep” at all. I’ve closed the computer, it went to “sleep”, carried it over to the printer I use via USB, plugged it in, and the printer spooled up and spat out my queued print job (as I intended to do, but was amused it worked that way).
Modern Standby is massively frustrating. Mine is going to hibernate about 3-5 times a day now, automatically, because modern standby hits its battery-consumption threshold (I disabled the hibernate-related timers). That’s 3-5 write cycles of multiple GB on the SSD, triggered only by sucking down too much battery in fake sleep.
I think I remember seeing something about that! Next time I reboot (… weeks later, lol), I’ll have to look into that!
(I desperately wish we could just have regular standby again)
2 Likes