If one was to spill a fizzy drink onto the keyboard/mouse pad, how much damage would it do.
In the past I have seen people tip drinks of their laptop and they stop working. I find that all one needs to do is rinse the whole laptop in distilled water and it often comes back to life. Sometimes it also needs ultrasonic clean. As the Framework 16 is so easy to take apart, I expect it will be a lot easier and quicker to clean.
I guess the question is, if one pours a fizzy drink on the Framework laptop, is it unlikely to reach the main PCB ?
I don’t need the thing water proof, but “splash” or “rain” proof would be nice.
I don’t know exactly how permeable the keyboard module itself is, but I’d mostly worry about liquid getting into those slots at the top. One is for the expansion bay interposer, and is probably covered by a rubber gasket and the interposer while in use, but the others open to the mainboard. You could always buy just a replacement mainboard if necessary, though!
As long as the keyboard directs the liquid off the “spacebar side”, the midplate doesn’t seem to contain any major gaps on the bottom half that would let liquid through. From experience, though, the key switches themselves don’t much like liquid poured into them.
I think the main benefit of the FW16 would be that you could easily completely disassemble the machine and wipe it down before any liquid has a chance to become dry sludge.
I haven’t heard any specific ratings for that, and as far as I know, ThinkPads are the only machines in which that’s a focal point of the design. I’ve accidentally dumped a comically-oversized mason jar of water onto my P17 in the past and it’s still going strong.
The nice things about the framework are the ability to completely disassemble/air it out, and if components do get damaged, you can–at least hopefully–isolate the parts that need replacing without scrapping the entire rig.
You can kill your motherboard and / or other parts.
Looks like it would depend on exactly where you spilled it. And the configuration of your keyboard. With a centered keyboard, liquid could travel between keyboard and right spacer right into the hole for the input module connector. And there are probably several other paths to the motherboard.
They were lucky. I would not count on that.
There has been a couple people who have posted spilling liquid on their FW13 and killed their boards.
I had 2 instances where a motherboard (usually the GPU part) got affected by liquid.
First time was a colleague who emptied his cup of coke on my work laptop (apparently an accident). 2 Weeks and the motherboard died even though we cleaned it and dried it etc.
Second time, daughter spilling sugar-wine over the keyboard. It took 2 1/2 years for the damage to be permanent, but she started having issues 1 year after (cleaned it with demineralized water first then with 99% ethanol trying to remove all sugar crystals and stuff). Her mistake was not telling me first. So the sugar wine could go deeper.
In the end, the problem is the remains of the liquid behaving differently with higher temperatures. It kills a part on the motherboard simple as that.
So - a little protection would be nice to have, cause an accident can happen fast. Usually not caused by us, but the outcome remains the same.
I know I tend to keep liquids in closed containers around my equipment, so far it has served me well. The occasional hot tea in a mug tends ot sit a good 1-1/2 ft away and I rotate my body to grab it and drink it. Modified my behavior and so far it has worked, and yes I accidentally spilled something on an old HP Laptop a long time ago. Fried the keyboard but I managed to grab and flip the laptop quick enough wherre nothing got inside. Replaced the keyboard and was back in business…but I learned my lesson.
