The idea is simple: connect the (internal) USB-C to the USB-C on the outside and also the USB-A.
Now, granted, you can only plug in one thing at a time. But what if you run out of USB-A ports or USB-C ports?
This one let you connect either of them.
Alternatively, put aTUSB8020B on it.
The card should self-destruct. The user is not fit to operate it correctly.
…ok, maybe a re settable e-fuse or something.
Apart from the fact that it would be obviously very dangerous if you were to connect two things at one (especially a power supply and a 5V device), I don’t think this would really work anyway, as T junctions inside USB super speed lines probably degrade the signal way too much.
That’s one valid option, but I don’t think there’s enough room on the PCB.
People have been trying to design this for a bit now, it seems to be possible electronically but mechanically it would either not fit or stick out. (which doesn’t look amazing)
I’d just alternatively design a holder for some Expansion Cards and carry that with you. It doesn’t take up a lot of space.
Even though from the outside, it looks like such a thing could be possible, even a single USB-A receptacle takes up almost all of the internal volume of an Expansion Card. You can check this by opening up one of your USB-A Expansion Cards. There is just barely enough space for two USB-C receptacles to fit side by side, but not enough to then also add the circuitry needed to make both functional.
So, fun fact about USB: the way they handled backwards compatibility in USB 3.x was to… not be backwards compatible, and instead just have separate pins for 3.x and older devices. And the 2.0/3.x split was even carried over into Type-C, which still has dedicated low-speed pins.
What this means that you can effectively shove two devices into one port without a hub or mux, by…
There’s two deal breakers with this setup:
I don’t know of a solution for the first dealbreaker, but the second one is actually fixable! Turns out there’s silicon specifically for adding 2.0 pins to a 3.x-only port (and apparently those exist). It’s called the VL670/VL671. Since the expansion card only goes in one way, and we’re probably already breaking spec 10 ways to Sunday, we probably could also omit the 3.x lane mux on the expansion connector and get away with a really janky two-chip “”“hub”"".
Note that I have not validated or even tried wiring up anything this way. But it at least makes more sense than putting two ports in parallel with one another.
Using a usb 2.0 hub would probably be more compliant than a usb 3 to usb 2 converter chip and the hub chips are similar size if not smaller and probably more common/cheaper.
Still, this will be very difficult with the space available, the 3 connectors will use up pretty much all of the PCB space (if they even fit).
I wonder if the either/or function could be done mechanically, either with a little either/or door you slide, or perhaps a rocker that would block the port on one side when something is plugged in the other.
An expansion card holder expansion card 
Would it be possible to charge the laptop on a port while a usb device is connected at the same time ? Since it’s a parallel connection I don’t think there might be a problem (other than device detection maybe ?)
Short answer: no.
Long answer:
Maybe, but no. Because while USB PD do not use data pins, they use two special pins on the connector for communication. How a single port handles those, in addition to the USB data pins, I am not sure.
Furthermore, you have to make sure that the peripheral is good with the current power on the rail (ranging from 5V to 20V) or else you will have to supply 5V from the onboard regulator.
The only reason I proposed such a thing is because how the device do not have a dedicated power port, meaning you will lose one thunderbolt just to power. While thunderbolt/USB hubs with power pass-through exist, they are, frankly, not the best solution. However, seeing how the Framework is not the “worker’s brick” of yesteryear I think this is not a huge issue. 3 ports are still quite good.
You could probably do something similar to a passthrough usb-c dock where one port is just purely charging and you have an additional usb-c port with a usb-3.0 connection.
Don’t know about the physical constraints.
Well,
I don’t know about youse, but just like with the battery, I’m going to download more USB Ports. Might even chuck in downloading more RAM at this point
Best Regards,
Varg
That’s what many docking stations and USB-C screens do. But the data device has to be ready to accept (or deliver) a higher voltage than 5V, so a dumb adapter wouldn’t work, the device has to be prepared for that, or at least you’d need an active adapter that converts the voltage appropriately.
As some said quote “juste use a hub” i do exactly that but im thinking about designing a terminal that would fit an expansion card slot and stick out, instead of an indépendant unit to get something with less cables sticking out.
Even thought of a dual expansion card terminal to allow to connect an egpu but I dont have thé Time to spend right now
I’m pretty sure USB PD (at least when done right) is a per-port thing. so you need to be able to provide the USB-A with 5V even though the card (and the laptop) is getting 20V. Voltage regulator (some small high-frequency buck-boost will likely do the trick).
Being able to do that would be nice. But, since now I have the option of the Framework 16, people who really need ports wouldn’t need to have janky (and frankly expensive and inconvenient) solutions like this.
Let’s not start that project.
If this is technically solved, this would be the best expansion card! It would be ideal if the A port was USB3 speeds, but even if the A port is USB2 speeds only, it’s still so much better than what is currently available.
So… I know I’m reviving a very old post, but I didn’t want to make a whole new thread for what is, ultimately, a small question about potential angles to make this work.
My first thought when I saw people saying that this wouldn’t work, or that charging would be too complicated, was… don’t USB OTG Cables exist, that let you charge a phone while also plugging in a USB-A device (powered by the phone)? And, indeed, they do. Something like this looks like it could be potentially jammed into the slot if you cut out the wires and re-soldered it, or you could just go right for something like this one and de-solder / reattach the USB-A part elsewhere. Might even be able to get the same types of chips and use them with a custom PCB? I… wouldn’t actually have much use for this sort of thing personally (I don’t usually use all my ports, and I’ve got a dongle if I really need more) but I do think the idea is kinda neat conceptually, and I was surprised to not see USB OTG type stuff discussed at all.
Yes, that would be no problem if you only want one of the ports to be power-only (and you don’t need a huge power output on the second port). Phones typically use the second connection for headphones and other low-power stuff only and the Framework wouldn’t be able to do much more in that configuration.
what if you want to charge the laptop through the type-C at 20V and your phone only wanted 9?
The whole point of multiple USB cards is to have even more USB. If you are capping it to 5V only on both, that limited the functionality quite a bit.
HOWEVER. This idea can be expanded to ideas for other cards that would, otherwise, totally work – how about a headphone jack + type-A? You need a 2-port 3.0 hub, but that is probably simple enough. Or just go down to 2.0, should be fine. Micro-SD and headphone jack? Dual headphone jack?
Someone had pulled off a rather out-of-spec “donglehider 2.0” that can let you hide a dongle inside and also attach multiple others, via wire and others.