I tagged you since you would be more likely to respond/follow up internally, but I got a response from Kieran about the same time you sent this, but regardless, thanks.
3 Likes
I’m currently planning to purchase this dock for the 8x board testing and also to confirm pinouts prior to purchasing prototypes, if any of you have suggestions for 4x docks, that would be great, and this won’t delay prototypes very much since my assembler and board fab will be off during the time the docks are in transit, I was also considering the F9G series from ADT-link which I would presume to be higher quality and also comes with a frame
I just checked and it was in fact in early August of 2023 that Framework celebrated this initiative in an X post saying “The race is on!”. I am glad they got back.
The OCup4v2 that you can see here: https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005006851196757.html
is the one I would buy to go with your 4x expansion adapter.
It’s one of the few egpu that includes a redriver and is easy to use either by itself with the power supply bracket included or with a real enclosure such as here https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005007661852679.html
I wish it also existed with a 8x interface.
I’ve been following this thread from the start and I have to admit, when I see the way Framework is supporting their potential creators (in this case Josh) is quite disappointing…
They used to care about the community but the more time pass, the more I see the company to be distant… 
2 Likes
I didn’t know that Framework was not supporting the creators anymore, where did they come from? is it because Josh Cook said that he didn’t receive a reply to one of his emails? I’m confused.
1 Like
Note: the below is speculation and not based on facts. And by looking at the responses below, it is wrong.
I think this raises an interesting point.
FW develop stuff in advance, before telling anybody about them.
For example, the expansion bay with dual NVME slots that they have just announced, was probably being developed for a long time.
What if an independent developer decided to develop their own dual NVME slots bay and thought they would sell them to users and maybe make some money from it.
The before the independent developer finished their bay, FW come out of the blue and announce their own, thus making the independent developers efforts mostly wasted.
Wouldn’t it have been better if FW had told the independent developers earlier, before they wasted their effort?
Might this exact scenario maybe actually have already happened with the dual nvme expansion bay?
Might it happen again for the oculink expansion bay?
1 Like
I’ve been aware of the dual m.2 module for a long while, and Framework have already said they won’t be doing a OcuLink module
2 Likes
March 23rd, 2023: Framework first announced the Framework Laptop 16 and posted preliminary schematics on their GitHub of the dual NVMe expansion.
June 28th, 2023: Framework explicitly stated that the Framework Laptop 16 would have “the ability to add two more in the Expansion Bay for colossal storage capacity.”
July 18th, 2023: The Verge reported that the dual NVMe module would be coming “later this year”.
We’ve known for a long time that this has been coming. This wasn’t out of the blue at all, instead it just seems a bit late (of course the FWL16 as a whole was supposed to be late 2023 and got delayed till early 2024, the dual NVMe module just seems to have been delayed more).
5 Likes
This project to develop an OcuLink expansion module has been discussed here for a long time and I would not be surprised if it was over a year already.
We are very grateful that Josh has been working toward that.
However that project with an availability target date initially set to a few weeks in the future has been going on for months now and each time Josh provides a status, it is to tell us that he is waiting for some response from Framework.
I don’t want to blame Josh for the delay and I don’t want to blame Framework either but at some point you have to wonder what is happening and if the will to let this project reach completion is really there.
There is always two sides to a story as a lot of things occur behind the scenes. This is something that can only be solved privately between Josh and Framework. I encourage everyone here to take a step back and keep an open mind before rushing to conclusions.
6 Likes
I’ll have to disagree with you here.
Having the option to get an Oculink port was the reason for me and I’m certain some others to get a FW16 over other laptops.
This project not going forward has been a main point of discussion for months.
This is one of, if not the longest and most active thread in Creators & Developers on the offical framework forum.
Coming out here and saying “Oh we weren’t aware that Josh is waiting for some information” is an insult to the creator community Framework wants to have around their products.
1 Like
Des might not be aware of it, but lets try not to argue.
6 Likes
I’m not angry with Destroya, but with the company. Destroya just has the unfortunate luck of sticking his head out.
1 Like
I just wanna say that FW could do better to support creators by making the discussions that happen over email public. Whether it’s some kind of sprcifications that are not released - release them. Or if it’s a proprietary retention nut for the interposer - make it byable on the marketplace. Those private things which ypu can only know about even being available on the forum are surely to detract some creators from even starting their projects.
I am glad that this is now happening. I, like others here for sure, have been a laptop enthusiast for long, and this is the single thread that I have been following the most ever, from the start. The boards Josh are working on are the single piece of tech I am waiting for the most.
I must say that it is people like Josh that make tech awesome. And please, Framework, fixing consumer electronics will be so much easier with the community.
My main question is simply: have we not waited long enough? So my point is to Framework as a company alone: please, please allocate resources to monitoring creators like Josh and responding faster than with a 45 day delay. Thanks.
5 Likes
This is the reality of novel hardware development and the reason we (usually) don’t announce hardware until it’s ready to ship. In this case, we’ve done a couple of rounds of schematic design reviews with Josh and suggested necessary changes to the design. In the last round of emails, Josh asked a question around PCIe that required us to go upstream and check with suppliers who in turn didn’t respond to us. We then did some further research and provided a response based on our best guess of some possibly underdocumented functionality on the CPU. Each iteration takes time, since for both Josh and for our engineering team, this is one of a large number of other projects that are in flight.
We release documentation and keep interfaces open because we believe in openness, but threads like this explain why many companies don’t.
31 Likes
Just got the M.2 bay and installed it, it’s working 100%. I tried to drop in an M.2 to Oculink adapter and run an Oculink cable outside the case, but it’s just to tight a space to fit the cable and housing in, even tried taking off the plastic at the end of the cable. I have another M.2 to Female Oculink cable coming in the mail that I think might fit. I’m still eagerly awaiting the Josh version of the Oculink PCB!
@Josh_Cook if I get the M.2 adapter working, is there any data I can get for you that might be helpful?
I have a wild idea.
The m2 board have 2 m2 connector. i assume each one is pcie4x4.
Now take two m2 to oculink 4i board. and wire the cable out of the laptop.
get a oculink merger board and turn 2 4i to 1 8i.
Now everything is solved.