I am using a 100W UGreen on, because I can charge a few devices but I prefer the Apple charger for those Macbook Pros because of the grounding.
Jieren,
Thanks, I had heard about Macbook Pro power. This is what I found on Amazon today.
What do you think?
I mean the original Apple Charger (140W)
You can get the US equivalent or maybe the 96W model.
I saw a couple of videos disassembling the Apple charger, the quality of the components are good actually.
As a layman, I am trying to get a good power adapter that works with the Framework. It seems that controller issues (above my pay grade) etc., make the 65W Framework adapter less than optimum. From reading the various posts, the consensus seems to indicate that around 100w is the sweet spot for my laptop (11th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i5).
As you say, the 96w is probably close enough for my needs.
Anyhow, much appreciate your info. Very helpful.
Nick
How about their own 180W charger (once it becomes available)?
Saw it, quite big for traveling around, which is what the Framework was supposed to be used for. I put my ass in different non-profit seats throughout Brooklyn and Queens and this laptop is optimized for that kind of work.
Thanks
I do wonder. I have the 11th i7 1165 and haven’t even thought of the supplied power unit as anything other than ‘good’.
Maybe you want to do some intensive graphics or power some peripherals. ??
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I do not pretend to understand the arcane discussion here about the controller and the battery interaction. As the discussion in this kind of disjointed community threads are all over the place, it is sometimes hard to find the correct information. What I have gleaned is that the power adapter should be larger than the supplied 65w. Why exactly? Ask someone with tech skills, not this layman. And to answer your query, yes I do have some peripherial hardware. Not sure it qualifies as serious drain on the power supply, but there it is. I have run into issues with USB-C modules and the power supply and occasionally, not often, but enough times the module will simply stop working with the power adapter and the old kludge of moving the power cable to the next USB-C connector works, each and every time. Why? Not a clue.
Nick
Yes it is a bit of a mystery.
Here’s what seems to make sense
- The battery can provide enough power
- Sometimes even with a 60W supply the battery may drain briefly
- The max CPU is 28W
- RAM | Screen | HDMI and some expansion cards
but as long as the heavy use isn’t for 4 or 5 hours then the combined battery and external supply I would have though is enough.
I will try and look into “the discussion in this kind of disjointed community threads” to see if I can get a more thorough view of what the power restraints are.
All the best
So there is this
Here is a graph of the rate of charging from zero to full.
The maximum charge was 50W and only for a short period, so if the battery is fairly well charged, say 70% the battery only requires 30W to charge at the maximum rate. So if you use 40W of other power then the battery will only charge at 20W and take a little longer to charge.
Even if you use 50 for the laptop and peripherals the battery will still get 10W an hour etc.
100 supply seems useful but not necessary
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Now I am thoroughly confused. Should I get a 100w or better power adapter or stick with the 65w one included with my Framework? Do you really need the 180w new adapter Framework has put out there and if so, why?
Thanks
Nick
That’s for the upcoming FW16 which, with various GPU options, will have a much greater power envelope than the FW13. You will definitely not need 180W for the FW13 (and I doubt the FW13 can negotiate the voltage at which that would be available).
I guess people who want a 100W are afraid that pushing the 65W one to its limit might strain the unit. You’ll have to work very hard to draw more than 40W for an extended time period (and that would probably involve charging a nearly flat battery while doing significant computations). I’ve been very happy with the 65W.
Should you find yourself in scenarios where you need 100W (I’m not sure that the thermal design of the FW13 can really sustain that for very long), you can always get another adaptor. That’s the nice thing about USB-C charging (and 60W is a respectable amount so you’ll find a use for the other charger anyway).
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Sure it won’t be needed but the voltages are standard PD 5V to 20V+ so will negotiate fine.
USB-C Power Delivery comes in two power levels. PD 2.0 and 3.0 over USB-C have the same 100W power rating as PD 1.0 over Type-A/B connectors. Power Delivery 3.1, however, offers a whopping 240W of power by pushing the voltage up.
USB PD never exceeds 5A of current, but the voltage can be dynamically configured to meet the needs of a device up to the maximum power limit for the standard.
The Device Handshake
When a USB PD charger connects to a device, it performs a “handshake” asking the device how much power it needs. USB PD supports seven voltage levels at 5V, 9V, 15V, 20V, 28V, 36V, and 48V.
Nils,…
As I have the FW11, even less need for that 180w… I am a semi-retired tech writer from CMP Media and Ziff-Davis, among many other writing gigs over the years. (Now non-profit grants for kids). I was always called the dumbest guy in the room up until I wrote something and blew the real techies away and my line was always the same:“I can write, you can’t.”
Shameless stealing of other people’s expertise. Dr. Dobb’s Journal is where I confounded the true techies the most. Research is key to good writing.
But I digress. I think I shall stick with the Framework adapter for now. It seems there are controller issues too, way above my pay grade. I have not pulled the trigger on buying a 100w power adapter and will not do so at this point.
For now I’m more than ok with the Framework. It became my ersatz desktop computer as I could not rely upon it in the field, as I travel between multiple non-profits. The tools I have on the Framework don’t easily translate to my tiny 4 gig Evolve travel note… as basic as you can get, but beggars can’t be choosers and it was an in-kind donation to me for work I did for yet another small non-profit which is and was cash short.
Thanks,
Nick
Any USB-PD adapter will work fine. 65W is enough to get full performance from the FW13, any generation of mainboard. A 100W adapter will pretty much just allow the battery to charge faster while the laptop is under high load.
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I think the 28, 36, 48 V levels were a relatively new addition – I think after the FW13 came out – so it’s quite possible FW13 does not have the electronics to negotiate those power levels (they would also not be necessary). Can someone confirm if the FW13 can negotiate those higher voltages and whether the cord supplied with it allows for those voltages?
I’d be interested in seeing a reference for this alleged issue that provides a basic explanation of what the problem might be. Someone with good electronics testing equipment putting the adaptor through its paces together with a write-up about which specs are important/problematic would be an interesting read!
I’ve heard nothing about controller issues on the power adapter side, and Framework’s adapter has actually been pretty widely praised. Early on there was an issue with the laptop being unable to use the 15V PD level but it is very rare that it ever negotiates to that voltage and I think the issue’s been resolved. FW13 definitely isn’t engineered for >20V PD, and the type-C cable with the adapter is likely only E-markered for 5A 20V and won’t allow higher voltage modes to be negotiated. I think that once the FW16 comes out it’s new C-C cable will replace the old one.
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Well, to all who are following this thread, as I said, I’m a layman here. I read all the disjointed threads (am no fan of how the Community learns things here. Info is all over the place, but that too is not my call. So, anything I say you must take with a grain of salt. I’m merely repeating what I’ve read, nothing on the hardware research front my front porch.
Nick
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From the end
Cords and cable don’t care about voltage that is why you increase it to get more power
Power (watts) is Voltage times Amps.
If a cable can take 3 maps then whether a 1 V or 1 million it doesn’t matter
Secondly the laptop asks for a voltage the power unit does not force a voltage ~ Voltage is force and ir not applied it is a request via the PD protocol
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If this is on the laptop I would contact support about that.
As Nich_Trimble also said I think you are referring to the 15v power profile issue talked about here USB-PD 15V mode issue - #15 by Kieran_Levin
I feel I can summarise the 100w adapter “consensus” you mentioned before as a desire to eliminate the Frameworks need to lean on the battery in times of high energy demand. This would be mostly during the 28 second boost under intensive CPU load and or using the Framework to charge multiple devices at the same time as well as an intensive CPU/GPU load.
100w is the recommended power for use in “desktop” mode (without a battery connected) because it will cover the spikes in energy demand that the 60w would use the battery for. Most users would never expereice in there daily usage.
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