Touchscreen? Or be able to swap in a touchscreen that fits

This panel is the same size and appears to be touch enabled. However, there is no picture of the front side, so I’m not sure if the digitizer would have any Acer branding on it, or if its size would prevent the screen from being able to be installed in the Framework laptop.

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Just to support you guys: Right now the only thing which holds me back from preordering: touch screen.
Where I come from: Last years I was working a lot with lenovo thinkpads (ie. Yoga 360) . Recently switched to Surface 7pro which is still great. But I would join the framework users once it has a touchscreen. I am waiting for you (but take your time) as I really like your basic idea.

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Hold on ! No touchscreen :astonished: on a premium laptop in 2021 ( almost 2022 ) ??? That’s certainly a deal breaker for me. Not touching this thing with a long pole until it is on offer. Until then, will continue to jam on on my Surface Book 2.

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I logged on to order, could not find touchscreen option. Back to dell website :frowning: - Please add touch as an option!

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@CSab6482 Thought of that too… Have a CNC Cutter here to make the digitizer fit into the case, I will try that out and maybe post my experiences here in the forum. When I have my device (I’m from Germany, the market started with batch 8 so I have to wait a little longer)

BTW… it is interesting that they promote a touch screen for acer swift 3 when the Acer swift notebooks do not have any touch screen… Maybe they do not show the front side on purpose…

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I have a feeling it is not just Framework not wanting to put in the touchscreen. There is a fair amount of licensing mumbo jumbo around which can be blamed on Wacxx but they have to protect their intellectual property. The M$ and fruit companies of the world are also guilty of that. Not to mentioned the issue of drivers. I have being looking around for such solutions for some time and it appears that if you want to build a multi capacitive touchscreen like those used in most of the mobile devices. You can easily get the screen and accompanying controller easily. But when it comes to one that supports Active Stylus be it using N-Trig (M$) or EMR you are out of luck since most searches will lead you into a distributor site and no way to purchase any thing. Although I would say the Framework project might be one that is exciting at least for me. Since it is modular so you can swap out the screen when support comes. And looking around what Framework something that I posted in another thread → Touchscreen that can use a stylus (for creative people) - #61 by Darren (Disclaimer: I don’t work for Framework and do not know their plans), it is encouraging that they are already working with a company that supplies such technologies. To be exact I don’t own a Framework Laptop yet, although I am waiting for the DIY parts to become available. I have some Graphic Displays around and would like to try a DIY version the equivalent of a Pixel Slate or Surface Pro 8. I would also dream of the day Framework has a new type of Bottom Cover Kit which takes a screen instead of the Keyboard. I believe they have engineering challenges for the heat of the CPU, GPU not killing the screen and changes in wiring.

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I’m curious if using display from an old surface device would be possible to install on a framework laptop considering it’s the same aspect ratio.

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@Riopato That is what I want to try - Bought an old surface laptop screen and want to try if I can swap out the display assembly as whole or the touch sensors only…

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Following. @Archoran_Encor will be really curious to hear how this goes. I accidentally just broke the screen on my touchscreen laptop. I really want to get a Framework as my next machine but I kind of need touch and stylus support for work. It doesn’t seem like official support is coming any time soon, but they’ve said the 40-pin display header should be compatible with touch screens. If the ribbon from a third-party display can reach the port and we can get drivers working, I’ll buy ASAP.

I’d love to have a touchscreen option, its a dealbreaker for me without it.

Any updates on this?

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Okay, I see this is not as easy as “swapping out some components”… That touch screen unit needs special controllers (its n-trig for surface)… Maybe I can do some crappy improvising stuff here but then I would still be unable to connect the controller internal on mainboard… so I would have to create a usb device with cables hanging around everywhere and I really dont have any idea what standard microsoft was using for this thing… I did not even speak about problems when using the wrong controller firmware…

The documentation of that crap is not available too so there is literally no info I could use to get this to function.

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As a hardware engineer, I assume they’d have 2 SKUs, the non-touch and touch-screen versions of the top. Possibly with some clever mech engineering they’d be swappable.

But I’d really love to see a base SKU for the touchscreen. (please!).

Unrelated, but I’d love to see a frame.work “mini” which is basically just a shell to hold the motherboard. It doesn’t need much fancy stuff it would essentially be a “USB-C” mini PC so you’d have to have adapters or they could add use the same port system as the laptops. But then as motherboards age out and I upgrade the laptop, I could take the old MBs and make them small servers / dev machines.

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By the way just a note! The connector does support it! I remember a staff member explicitly said it before!

Okay… Too large, too large, too crappy, too large - Framework has REALLY thin bezels… Any screen I have here is too large to fit into the case. So the alternative would be to to have a screen without backplate or some improvised backplate not matching with the laptop size. So I can say my attempt has failed. Waiting for Framework now to add a supported touch screen to the marketplace :grimacing:

I’m curious if any current framework DIYers have a working touchscreen solution? I as many others in this thread have mentioned that this is the one thing setting us back from purchasing. I don’t really care who it comes from (DIY, or directly from framework), as long as it works I would actually buy the laptop and get it done.

Finding a touchscreen for this machine is still going to be pretty hard, but it just got significantly easier: FW released pinouts for their display connector:

Display Interface

IPEX 20879-040E connector used to interface to an eDP display. Note that there are signals defined for both USB 2.0 and I2C touchscreens. There is a PWM interface to control backlight brightness, but the display currently used on the Framework Laptop converts that to a DC LED control.

Pin Signal Description
1 BL_POWER 12-17V backlight power
2 BL_POWER
3 BL_POWER
4 NC
5 GND
6 AUXP
7 AUXN
8 GND
9 EDP_TXP_0
10 EDP_TXN_0
11 GND
12 EDP_TXP_1
13 EDP_TXN_1
14 GND
15 EDP_TXP_2
16 EDP_TXN_3
17 GND
18 EDP_TXP_3
19 EDP_TXN_4
20 GND
21 EDP_HPD hotplug
22 BLK_PWM_LCD Backlight PWM
23 BLK_OFF_N Backlight Enable
24 NC
25 NC
26 3V_EDP 3VS
27 3V_EDP
28 3V_EDP
29 3V_TS 3VS for touchscreen
30 3V_TS
31 USB_DP USB
32 USB_DN
33 TS_EN
34 TS_RST
35 TS_INT_N
36 TS_SDA
37 TS_SCL
38 NC
39 GND
40 GND
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I would absolutely love to pre order a touchscreen display to swap out for my non-touch display.

something else I’d love to have is the option for a keyboard to be at the bottom and the pad to be at the top. my wrists hurt after typing on the laptop for too long. I may have to make DiY guide if I can get one set up.

Did some more research on this because frankly I’m just curious if it could be done.
The Acer Swift 3 SF313’s touch panel seems to be a very good candidate for replacement, although it uses a ZIF connector instead of a right angle snap connector like the Framework. If someone finds a cable and a pinout to confirm I won’t fry my motherboard by plugging the new panel in, I’ll buy the Swift screen and do some tests.

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I’m delighted to see that Framework is still going strong more than a year in. I love my 11th-gen Framework (best laptop I’ve ever owned by a longshot), and it’s cool to see some interesting upgrade options pop up on the marketplace. In particular, the more rigid top panel and 4.0 kg hinges.

That all being said, a massive portion of the laptop market is only interested in laptops with touchscreens. Whether it be for casual creative applications, note taking, or just general comfort with touchscreen mobile devices, lots of people want this. As an instructor, I would personally love to be able to annotate assignments on my main device as opposed to a separate touchscreen device like a tablet. (I’m currently using an ancient touchscreen chromebook as a tablet)

Of course this should be optional, I see a lot of people getting huffy about touchscreens because they don’t want other people’s fingers on their screen. Cool. But it should absolutely be an option when customizing a new laptop and on the marketplace.

I know this is not a new discussion, but we’ve known for a year now that this isn’t on Framework’s roadmap and I just don’t understand why. Yes, sourcing a 4K 3:2 touchscreen panel is probably difficult. But Framework is a much more mature company than it was a year ago, and there’s probably a manufacturer out there that would do it. It can be expensive, the current panel is already $200 so I know it wouldn’t be cheap. But we would at least have an option.

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Yes, I had to go with a HP ProBook that is very repairable also because FW lacks a Touchscreen option. Don’t be a bad APPLE and not give us that option when so many things are touch enabled.

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