Hi Framework Community,
Over the last few months, we’ve been working on some new things to contribute to the community that we think people would benefit from, and enjoy building in their home labs. We have created a Dongle hiding card for framework machines. While we do admit, it isn’t as sleek as we could have hoped, we do encourage using our design as a base for improvement and custom solutions if it doesn’t fit your exact use case. For those of you who missed our introduction post, we’re a team of students at Michigan Technological University working in the Open Source Hardware Enterprise (OSHE). We also developed an I2C/UART card, as well as a usage display for the Framework desktop in the previous semester, as well as a Magnetic charger for Framework brand machines that we developed this semester.
The card is based off of the first part USB-A Card’s concept of having a USB-A port inset half way through the card, but due to parts availability, we couldn’t find the exact model of port Framework themselves used when we ordered our components (But we do encourage people to implement it if they have the footprint for it). Our solution still works as intended, and doesn’t cause any conflicts with spacing under the 12, 13, or 16 when inserted. It’s essentially the USB-A Card, but recessed to allow you to insert a dongle for your wireless mouse of choice without leaving a piece of plastic significantly sticking out of the side of your machine. The card is mounted upside down in the case because of the specific USB-A port we chose to use in lieu of the actual type A expansion card’s port.
If you’d like to learn more or follow our progress, you can find our GitHub here. As always, OSHE is committed to keeping all of our projects open source and accessible for everyone.
We would like to especially thank Framework themselves for contributing to the development of our devices this semester by sending over one of their Framework 13 motherboards, in addition to a Cooler Master Case! It helped with physical and electrical testing with a Framework brand device, and is doing well as a lab machine when we are not needing it for testing. Big Thanks from the Framework team, and OSHE as a whole!