Yes, I’d purchase one as well.
It’s indeed an undertaking heavy in an upfront investment and I’m sorry it’s been hard for you to continue this process.
I’m sure Framework buyers are not foreign to paying some premium for a unique item, so I’m confident you’ll be able to recoup the investment if you don’t price the items too low.
It comes to my mind that an RGB LED matrix module for the Framework 16 sold about 120 pieces at about 70-80 bucks each. Another example is this Etsy listing where people are happily buying the item for 50+ Euros that another person is selling on the forum for 15.
That’s another advice I’d give - post the items for sale on both Etsy, Ebay and classifieds for your country in addition to the forum - you’ll probably get some sales through those channels as well.
And of course, if you’ll ship to Europe, I’ll purchase one for myself as well.
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Hey, I am asking about the latter, which indeed others have already tried. I would be interested in a quote and if they could build it, if possible.
Yes, indeed.
I can ask if you’d like, but…
It was $200 USD for a single test piece for a single M.2 to OCuLink adapter. It would be at least that much for a dual test piece that may not (probably will not) work. They don’t have a FW16 of their own to test with, so they won’t give you any guarantee of functionality. If you want to roll the dice (like I did), they will do an initial batch of 10 pieces. For the adapter I asked for it was $400 for 10 but you would be looking at more. This pricing does not include tariffs or duties. After the initial order, the minimum order quantity is 200, so even with a significantly lower cost per piece, it is still thousands of dollars.
Also, I will not be asking them about anything else at this time. I do not want any communication that may cause confusion with the completion of the process for the 4i adapters. I am hoping for an update on that by the end of this week (maybe early next week).
Not trying to sound mean. I apologize if I come off that way.
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That’s a solid decision, while this 4x board is in it’s last phases, don’t disturb the process. Let them get one product released then talk about the next.
To me a dual board based around the M.2 board doesn’t make any sense, to go through the entire M.2 board then to a second board and finally to the cable and to the GPU that’s just asking for signal degradation. If you’re going to be dragging all 8 lanes out, I would think that the solution would be a PCB like that M.2 board that connects right from their PCIE connector all the way thought to the socket on the back. I’d also probably pin that out to an MCIO x8 connector instead of Oculink as I think that’s a more solid connection.
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Hi, completely and absolutely understand! I was very close to not even bringing it up myself - as I am aware of all the difficulty the community had with getting things ready, so the very and absolutely last thing I want to do is to disturb any process that is going so well. So please, no need to ask. Thanks for the info you provided in your post, and let’s first go with one project until finalisation - and then let’s see. Thanks a lot!
And by the way, I am hereby confirming I will pay for one of the 4i adapters - solid work and thanks for all the effort!!
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There is TI tools for impedance. Please don’t fail that. Also make sure same length of the PCIe pairs.
I’m happy to review the board.
BTW I got also this DEG1 board, it was not too expensive (99€ delivered with tax in the EU). I took it apart and installed in eGPU case, with 7800 XT. Lets see next week, should get a chinese m.2 x4 oculink breakout.
DEG1 is well made, I can recommend it. Should use those retimers etc chips in there, well made just beside the connector.
For the build I just took out the DEG1 PCB, and drilled new holes to eGPU case. Hope it works, its a 500€ gamble.
Big issue would be though if any proper VR games work. (I have frozen 23H2 W11, and HP Reverb G1). They used to do fine with the desktop..
But please take note, that DEG1 has only retimers, its NOT BUILT for any hotplug! I did not see any TVS type thing in there!!!
Now, the OcuLink is actually a dead end, ending to PCIE4. There is a new standard, CopprLink.
I hope Nirav is listening, and remembers we can have a new port in there in the future.
But still in the meantime, we can have lots of use in OcuLink with the HW we have. PCIE4 is no slouch.
I have not done any research on this, but maybe I will here soon. If it is something you want, there is a thread titled something to the effect of “what should we build next” you can post that on.
Well I did finally the build described here. I have a chinese m.2 4i breakout, a DEG1 (reworked to proper eGPU box, I found the DEG1 concept very flimsy.), and AMD 7800 GPU. Thought that is probably most optimal since we have just 4x bandwidth.
But, its running now fine, with 2 monitors on the GPU, on Win11. 23H2.
Not going to update… have to try some VR games.
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There’s also MCIO which is more server-facing, but I’ve found some boards that can use it.
The build seems pretty robust, although ugly. Hope the new clean 90 dgr board realizes. Its power hungry though, the 7800XT wants constant 55W. Have to get quiet PSU…
VR does also work, I suppose 4x PCIe is relevant mostly to loading times?
Very small update.
An order was placed but I do not have them yet. Even after I receive them I will want to re-test to make sure they work as well as the single sample. Until they are in hand and tested I don’t have any other updates.
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Now with this DEG1 thing the 4i wire got really really hot. Stopped working.
Could be grounding issue, as there are 2 power supplies - but I’m really not impressed at this point.
First guess is the shield contacting with Framework case. Yes - should be 0 potential but in real life cannot trust that. Considering the amount of heat it must have been over 1A.
I’m sure I’m now getting lecture that its not possible, but yes it is. 2 power supplies with live and neutral in opposite phases can lead to strange end results. Isolation is usually not that perfect. With China stuff even less so.
I’m using the DEG1 and have had crashes before. I was using an m.2 to oculink adapter with a ribbon cable that was slightly damaged. Swapped it out for the one that has split individual wires and haven’t had that crash since. Have not experienced the hot wire issue you described though.
I hope the retimers took the amps, have to check if the GPU card is still OK. But that will take a few days.
If so I could solder new ones. ..so if anyone has already figured out the part number…
Really sorry to hear that. My DEG1 also does get a little hot at the bottom after some hours, but it does work perfectly otherwise. I make sure to use the stock cable that came with it.
So @Kyle_Tuck was gracious enough to allow me to be a part of testing his prototypes. He recently mailed me his newest prototype to test with my DEG1 setup, and I just installed it today. Simply put, I can confirm that it does indeed work with the DEG1. I also must say, it is so much more convenient for the removable bay to not have to deal with that ribbon any longer. Less tape, less snagging and damage, and less stress. Going to run a benchmark and compare results here soon.
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