@ExplodingWaffle could you possibly shared your models that you’ve used when testing/measuring in this thread? I’d like to have a play with some ideas myself; be great to be able to reuse what you’ve already done if possible
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I don’t know if anyone is still thinking about this but once I read through it I thought of the port that Fujitsu uses in their laptops. They have it collapsible and slides in and out of the side of the laptop.
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@Daniel-L
already mentioned above
but I agree - would be nice if someone could offer a teardown or something for some kind of reverse engineering
Cant remember where i heard it but 95% sure those existing collapsible designs are completely proprietary and not open to be used by other manufacturers. They aren’t framework, after all. You could try reverse engineering but wouldn’t recommend it, they might come after you for patent infringement.
Wow! Amazing project, love that someone’s actually attempting it rather than speculating that it can’t be done based on measurements!
Really good work, keep it up! 
So you have a working prototype? Is there a STL or something of your case design and BOM for assembly? Even with the noted shortcomings, I’d much rather had one of these than the ‘official’ ethernet expansion card.
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A view of a similar Dell implementation, also disassembled. It does seem too thick for the Framework, but the design created above with the flap should work.
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I wonder if, instead of fitting a huge spring-mechanism in the card, it would be easier to just fit that small cable in there?
So when you want to use the port, you completely take out a foldable Ethernet port that is connected with that small cable to the expansion card.
Of course pulling on the Port while it is out of the expansion card would rip of the cable from the PCB, but that is something we could try to solve after i have heard your opinions to that idea.
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The XJACK is great for temporary use, but I’ve always feel bad about using it as a long-term connection. Even on a desk, it’s so fragile, I’ve seen many of these get mangled up. 
The other thing that makes it feel more like a “temp solution” is the way the cable connects, it would have to stick up then over, so another thing to make sure you don’t snag on.
However, an option like the XJACK on an expansion card would be nice for those who’s use case is to only use it for emergencies and/or quick/temp connections (troubleshooting network equipment, for example). For that purpose, I personally would want such a card for my FW16.
The question is… is the XJACK patent expired yet?
The Verge covered this, and has an animated GIF of it that I think is pretty cool.
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Interesting effort, with the FW16, is there same height issues, or will the 16 manage to have enough room?
It is fully compatible with all existing expansion cards and therefore has the same height limitations.
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I was afraid of that. Figures sigh
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I’m not afraid 
Full compatibility of expansion cards ties well into reuseability!
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Out of curiosity, why not use replacement parts for devices that had these fancy foldable connectors, like FUJ:CA52303-3751 from an 2013 era Fujitsu laptop?
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Doesn’t make sense to me. The only advantage of the ethernet expansion card is that you can use standard cables. Instead of buying a mini rj45 to full-size ethernet adapter, you could simply buy a USB-C to ethernet adapter/cable and you wouldn’t need any special expansion card.
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i think you wouldn’t be buying an adapter for mini rj45 to rj45, but a rj45 to mini rj45 cable. it seems the biggest issue is always going to be the size of the rj45 jacks, and if you are going to use a usb-c to rj45 cable (i dont know if they even exist because its not just a passive convert) might at well just use these mini jacks that can handle up to 10Gb… it seems a worthy challenge to get 10Gb to thunderbolt expansion card in a frame work… but yeah IDK either, just trying to be helpful with ideas for a solution instead of finding ways it doesnt work…
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That’s still just a dongle. We want to avoid dongles, why we get a Framework.
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