The expansion bay is designed to be used as an external battery. (That’s the primary reason that I decided to go with the 16 instead of the 13.)
You are right. On pins 41-46 are for power from expansion bay to laptop.
Yes.
The expansion bay has 6 wires (and 6 ground wires) that are specifically for this.
From the expansion bay documentation on those 6 wires:
Each of those 6 wires is rated for 15w, so a total of 90w.
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You’re right, why not both!? 55Wh would be sweet. There are a lot of restrictions based on my design, to say the least. If I’m still going to push with my design (I haven’t touched it since the last post due to school), I’ll have to 3d print frames to accommodate it; I might as well add some more room in the process and redesign the frame to accommodate a lot more capacity.
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That seems low, is that enough draw for the cpu, monitor, usb, etc etc? The 180W not being enough for the laptop with the gpu that tops out at 100w draw makes me think that might be cutting it close if you are wanting to do anything that might push it with the battery module
The CPU will draw power in the mid 50w range temporarily and then STAPM throttle (ie. Reduce power to keep the temperature of the outside of the laptop safe to touch) to 45w soon after.
I haven’t seen the datasheet for the display that Framework is using (afaik it hasn’t been released publicly), however it is a variant of a panel where the other variants are all around 6w to 9w at full brightness.
The keyboard and other parts of the laptop are no more than a couple watts.
So unless the user is plugging high powered USB devices into every single port (each individual port is limited to 7.5w, although one port at a time can bump to 15w with PD), 90w should be plenty. If someone is doing that they may just have to draw some power from the main battery.
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The laptop without the gpu has gotta be capable of pulling at LEAST > 80W or the 180W adaptor would be enough even with gpu as its only capable of pulling 100W sustained, so at the very least that 90s gotta be cutting it close, and the ones i have seen where people are pulling from battery are only using usb mouse nothing else
I managed to pull 90W from the wall with mine under synthetic loads.
No dGPU, but I got the 180W adapter.
The CPU reports 45W, so the other 45W must be used for other things. The fans combine to 12W, don’t know how the rest figures into it.
The 180w adapter operates at 36v, which is a higher voltage than the laptop itself operates at (20v according to the documentation on GitHub), creating a need to convert that 180w down to a lower voltage.
In an attempt to justify continuing to use proprietary plugs another brand (Asus) has claimed that dealing with that higher voltage wastes ~10% of the power from the charger. Which if taken at face value means that after that inefficiency the laptop only gets ~162w from the 180w charger.
So with the GPU taking 100w that means that the rest of the laptop is capable of drawing over 62w when under heavy sustained load. 90w is probably cutting it close but I don’t doubt it will be adequate most of the time (and when it isn’t I don’t think it’s a big deal to tap in to the main battery briefly, or just limit the CPU power, at 30w the CPU is only slightly lower performing than at the full 45w).
Lastly I have a Framework Laptop 16 without dGPU and the most I’ve gotten it to draw from the battery has been around 70w (with Windows set to max performance and running a render with the screen at 100% brightness).
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Hello to all contributers of this thread,
first I would like to thank you all for posting here.
But I think there is some confusion or misconception about this thread.
First to the target of this thread:
→ A Battery EXTENSION that is connected to the FW16 with the Expansion Bay
And for clarification:
→ There is no room for a dGPU anymore
→ The internal and the extension battery would work together (providing more than 90W in total)
To see waht is THEORATICALY possible please refer to my post above:
If you just want to extend the runtime of your FW on the go and are happy with an external weight and cable then just use a PD Powerbank from a reputable brand.
And for my final thing to say: PLEASE for all of you that want to contribute to this or any other thread. Don’t jump in there and write stuff before even reading the (whole) thread. We want good and helpfull posts and are not willing to clarify misconceptions every time.
Thanks for reading.
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The conversion is a good point i wasnt thinking about, and probably fixes any worries i could have had.
I dont think anyone thought there was room for the dgpu still, I used it as a point to measure possible power draw under load without dgpu. This also reads as accusatory towards my comment particularly, so in defense, I have read the entire thread, have been here since it first started. If that was just premptive I apologize, thats just how it comes off with its timing and the rest of its wording relative to obviously misunderstanding my reason for mentioning dgpu.
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I did not want to accuse anybody of anything. But if it came over as such I apologize.
My intention was to just summarize the thread and raise awareness for working together in a helpful way.
You (and many other) did your work right.
I hope together we can come up with a design that works and has plenty energy storage for a nice laptop with hours and hours of battery runtime.
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I apologize for assuming then, and am very excited for the potential of this module
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Should I create a topic on Creators & Developers specific to my project, or would that be redundant?
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Hmm, I dont know, I can see the logic for both choices. Doing so could increase feedback from makers, but could also cause confusion, especially if a mod merged the topics, at least initially.
Soo I have found a huge issue with my current design. It won’t fit. Not even close to possible.
The rails for the back module use the same rails as the battery housing; it really is on me for not looking; I was wondering at the time why there was a conveniently placed groove at the sides. Basically, I’m going to have to do a complete redesign; I’m curious to see if I can make a larger cavity in the bay itself instead of retrofitting a battery pack into the base one. we’ll see, I need to finish up school before I start on anything. To see this better I would recommend going to the Graphics module install guide.
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Ah yes, finally found the source of the meme: ¿Por qué no los dos?
Thanks, Old El Paso!
I have both faith in you, and a plan B.
Plan B: A roll of velcro and a dream.
Hi there.
Using the back expansion bay, could it be possible to create a battery extension for the laptop 16 ?
I tried to imagine one for the laptop 13 but the space constraints, ventilation grid and lack of a secure way to attach the module seems to render it not feasible in a perfectly harmonious way.