Note that both the new Top Cover (CNC) and 4.0kg Hinge Kit are largely independent of the behavior of lid resonance. Resonance (what some people may call wobble or shake, but we don’t because those are too ambiguous) is that when you tap the lid when it’s open, it’ll bounce for a second before settling, without the lid angle changing. This is a function of the hinge structure acting as a spring (in the sense of linear elasticity). We use a high strength steel alloy for the hinge structure, but the size and weight of the lid are still enough for the steel to elastically deform and bounce back. This is also not really a functional issue since the display isn’t a touchscreen, but it’s not behavior we’re satisfied with. Our engineering team is working with multiple hinge suppliers currently to design for reduced resonance. We’ll make any results from this available in the Marketplace along with rolling it into future laptop production. The beauty of upgradeable products is enabling existing users to pick up improvements as we make them!
2. Have there been any changes made regarding the longevity of the hinges?
There have been issues with the current generation of hinges wearing out pre-maturely. I’ve had two sets wear out now, and I’ve seen others with similar issues, where the hinges will degrade over the course of months, not years, and no longer support the weight of the display even while stationary.
Have there been any design changes to these 2nd generation hinges that will make this type of premature wear less likely?
3. Is there any timeline on when the 2nd generation hinge will release?
Thanks. I’d love to hear comparisons from people who have switched from the 3.3kg hinge to the V2 hinge, once they arrive.
So far the replacement 3.3kg hinges I received from customer support are still perfect as far as opening force goes. So I don’t have any urgency in upgrading. But I would be interested in a hinge with less resonance.
Just got mine and installed them. While they are mostly the same you can tell that they added some reinforcement on the screen side compared to the original hinges (mine are the 11th/batch 5 original 3.3kg that came installed with the laptop):
I didn’t notice until now after I installed them looking at the photos, the actual hinge assembly looks slightly beefier, but it’s difficult to tell and I don’t have calipers.
As for hinge performance, it’s slightly more difficult to open with one hand depending on what kind of traction it has, but it’s not a problem. I feel like I might have gotten on the higher end of whatever the force variance for the hingeset is for the gen 2’s.
The wobble/resonance is unresolved. Still an issue. Maybe it’s a bit more muted now, it doesn’t seem to happen as much unless I intentionally bop the screen.
On the other hand my laptop no longer falls flat when I’m moving around with it open. It feels really quite solid and won’t move unless I force it to in some way. Even bumping a table or desk doesn’t really induce the wobble.
I’ll induce some wear on the hinges in the meantime now that they’re installed, if anything notable changes I’ll make a note in this thread.
Realized I didn’t get a picture of the backside of the hinges which makes the changes way more obvious, so I took the five minutes to remove the left hinge, get a picture, and put it back:
I’ve installed my hinges as well and have similar findings. At first it’s really easy to mix up the hinges if you don’t know what you’re looking for. I know I almost did!
At first, I would say that resonance is the same, but after using it a while, I do notice a difference. First if I intentionally test the screen, then it still wobbles. However, the duration of the wobble is reduced by a significant amount. As well for me, it seems I have to intentionally look for the wobble for it to happen. Moving the laptop around is fairly stable, and the screen doesn’t fall flat by moving the machine around.
On a final note, I do use a surface laptop for work, and after testing that one, it also has screen resonance. Testing side by side, the gen 2 hinges do bring the framework more in line with that machine whereas before there was an obvious difference in screen shake.
So to sum up, temper your expectations as it’s not a night and day difference, but does leave me satisfied with the upgrade.
Edit: I should say that I have the original top cover, not CNC.
Just wanted to add my thoughts here. I’m pretty happy with the new hinges, so if you find my thoughts to be too positive, please keep that in mind.
From what I’ve noticed from messing with the new 2nd gen hinges the last few days, the new hinges have smaller initial amplitude of oscillations (the resonance is less the start with) and more damping (the amplitude of the oscillations decreases faster). I find both of those to be quite impressive given that I couldn’t find any visual differences from the 4.0kg hinges that I swapped from. Comparing the new hinges to my 15" Dell Latitude from work, the amplitude of the resonance is still more than on the Latitude, but it’s much closer than it was before. You can check the first half of Dave2D’s original Framework video for an example of the wobble and flex of the original framework 13, and when I compare my current framework with the CNC top panel and the V2 hinges to that video, it’s a significant difference.
Just my thoughts. I wanted to add an overall positive take on them to complement the existing info. Please note that the new CNC top panel was installed for both the 4kg hinges and the V2 hinges in the comparison above. Again, I’m quite happy with the new hinges, so take my thoughts with that in mind.
Edit: The new hinges also seem to have higher frequency oscillations. Not sure on this; just my impression.
. Looks like Framework is addressing my #1 complaint.
