Good morning Ladies and Gentleman,
I’m planning to use the original Framework 13 eDP cable, cut it into 2 pieces and connect my smaller display and a USB 2.0 touchscreen. So I’m wondering if the USB 2.0 Data lines are carried inside this cable. Otherwise any suggestions for custom cable assembly manufacturers are appreciated 
it could also be used to make a status light bar similar to the line of status LEDs on older thinkpads, something like this
I’m afraid it most likely does not. Since the current cable is for non-touchscreens, the display-side connector has no place for touchscreen pins, and so there would be no point in making the cable thicker by adding wires that go nowhere.
Mind if I ask which screen?
If the touchscreen pins are on a separate connector, not the eDP one, then you could potentially grab usb from someplace else. The fingerprint reader and webcam are both sources of usb2.0. If you don’t wish to give up either, perhaps you can fit a small usb hub board.
Hi,
so I did some looking at the PCB stuff and found out that I can use both USB and I2C for my touchscreen communicaton. My guess is that the I2C lines are also not wired. But other than that my current setup is this:
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/32971211532.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.254.4a055c5fTdSu1a&gatewayAdapt=glo2deu
Actually I can use the camera USB but that means I need another cable to my adapter board and the USB to I2C bridge. For now I keep looking for a custom cable.
wish me luck
Good luck! 
A good few people have wanted to use the eDP touchscreen pins & the lack of a cable seems to stop them.
You want to use the touchscreen over i2c rather than usb? Hm, you might already know but just in case, I believe that would be a lot harder for many people. Since i2c isn’t plug-and-play like usb is, I believe you’d need to modify the Embedded Controller firmware to have it work.
Day 3…
I couldn’t find what I was looking for so your idea sounds the most reasonable.
I’m not excited to adjust the schematic.
For the people who want to test their Displays, I can recommend this footprint for a PCB:
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | Column 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is it wobbly? | Yes | ||
| Does it fit? | Yes | ||
| How thick is the PCB? | 0.8mm | ||
| Do I take the blame if you manage to destroy your mainboard? | Of course not | ||
| forgive me this table |
Do you usb kicad? Happen to have a github & be willing to share your footprint? Of course, with whatever warnings attached that you feel are necessary.
Oh, that’s interesting. I haven’t seen anyone try that. Can you tell us more? Did you connect to the touchscreen usb pins and see a device show up? Are you on Linux? If so, could you post your lsusb so we can see where it shows up among the internal usb hubs?
I presume connecting to the i2c touchscreen pins produces nothing in logs. Without the EC firmware being modified to talk to what’s connected.
I vaguely recall someone considered a breakout board to access the eDP touchscreen pins like that. But if I recall no pcb mounted mating male connector could be found, only those for cables. I presume that’s why you went this route. I’m guessing the DP doesn’t currently work? I know cables use micro-coax for each individual wire & I’ve heard the signals are sensitive / not tolerant of interference at all.
I didn’t use KiCad, I used EasyEda. Unfortunately I can’t test touchscreens because I destroyed the mainboard long time ago due to bad soldering.
Actually the display used to work without a problem even though I didn’t pay any attention to matching the impedance on my adapter board or have a continuous ground plane. I also did just use 2 lanes and it worked plug and play.
I’m sorry you lost the mainboard.
Great to know that, at least for testing, such setups can work. Thanks for being willing to risk such things in order to hack away at exploring alternate display possibilities and the eDP touchscreen options.
