In the small form factor, would it be possible to create a battery that would be powerful enough to be worth it?
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@Kieran_Levin Thank you! That is unfortunate… but thankfully I do have a capture card via USB that works pretty good. Latency drops a tad bit, but it’s not bad. I use it mainly to record my Switch games on current computer 
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@James_cody Do you mean packing a battery into the expansion card’s size? If so, probably not. You’d probably struggle to put anything more than about 1 amp-hour into something that size, if that. That might keep the laptop running an extra few minutes, but nothing useful. However, if you opened your requirements up to something that’s bigger than the expansion card, for example some big battery pack that sits under the laptop and doubles as a stand, you could probably fit a relatively large battery that supports 60W (or higher) USB-C PD, for example. My main worry there would be that if the port is the only connection point, you might be risking damage to the USB-C port if you mishandle the laptop by even a little. Much less risk in my book to simply purchase an off-the-shelf USB-C PD power bank, and just bring that along when you think you might need the extra juice.
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@Kieran_Levin do you know if an “hdmi in” module would be possible without it being treated as a capture card? or are you saying that because this is a laptop display, the only way forward would be a capture card?
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@Colton_Idle there is no direct electrical path from the expansion card slot to the display. You would have to use a software solution to capture video and display it on the internal display.
AFAIK no laptops support this. But there is a separate category of mobile phone docks that can do this.
Someone with the right skills might be able to get a software solution in place that DMAs uncompressed video from a capture device direct to the gpu framebuffer and get sub ~1frame latency.
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Summery of Suggestions
- multiple type-c in 1 Expansion Card
- Multi-Gig Ethernet 10/5/2.5/1
- SD and Micro SD reader together
- USB C port + USB A port
- microcontroller
- 4g/5g cellular modem
- “folded up” ethernet jack
- 3.5mm MIDI (IN/OUT)
- 3.5mm audio interface microphone and speaker
- VGA
- wifi 2.4 and 5 GHz card
- extra battery?
- drawer for “snacks”
- Slot that fits screw driver
- RS232
- CAN bus
- RS-485
- RS-422
- Profibus-DP
- HART
- UART
- LORA
- DeviceNet
- Honeywell Data-highway
- Allen Bradley Control-Net
- IEC61850 certified ethernet
- SC or ST fibre ethernet
- DNP3
- i2c
- spi
- a whole numpad
- card readers for older cards
- Legacy - Keyboard, Mouse adapters (ps2)
- FM signal transmitter
- Software Defined Radio
- wifi antenna
- double-height card
- NFC and RFID
- smart card/badge reader
- Alternative power connections (mag-safe connector/barrel)
- HDMI input / video capture card
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I’d also be interested in some fun radio stuff. High-power WiFi with external jack, SDR, LoRa, etc.
Some flexible mesh networking would make it really interesting for EMCOMM.
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It may be possible to put this USB 3.0 NanoHub from Muxtronics on Tindie in a card with some modifications.
The source files for USB 2 is Muxtronics NanoHub , and USB 3 Muxtronics USB 3.0 NanoHub .
I don’t have enough time to work on this, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to modify this to have two A ports, and a single C plug. Could also use C ports as well.
This will ONLY be USB 3, and not any PD, display, or thunderbolt.
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Isolation for USB devices.
Power meter for USB devices.
I agree that the two-ports-per-hub, in at least one of the ways mentioned so far, is necessary for this project to be taken seriously by many.
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First let me say I had this idea 20 years ago but using the PCMCIA cards. I had a network card and it occurred to me why couldn’t we just make all the components modular like a desktop PC. I may have even sketch up something. Unfortunately, I was just in college back then and laptops hadn’t become as thin and light as they are today so a slightly larger form factor of expansion cards would have been required. I am glad someone was finally able to run with the idea though, just wish it hadn’t taken so long.
So some of my ideas for expansion cards have already been proposed but I am going to list them here anyway just as a + 1 for those ideas.
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Obviously dual USB-C ports on a single card would be nice. I’d really like to have 2 Type C and a Type A but leaving room for 2 more expansion cards.
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I will second the multiple speed network cards. I did see there are some challenges there in terms of form factor. As I wrote my intro to this post, I remembered that my PCMCIA network card actually had a bulge that hung outside of the card slot. The card itself was the size of 2-3 credit cards and slid into the laptop much the same way Framework’s expansion cards do, just used a different interface. I am wondering if you could fit the circuitry into the card itself and then use a bulge on the outside for the port. Wouldn’t be quite as “sexy” but if it gave you multiple speed Ethernet, it might be a reasonable compromise.
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Here is the ultimate expansion card: a GPU. Yes, that would probably be hard to accomplish, especially cooling. I don’t see this one happening too soon but it is a thought. This is part of what led to me thinking about a modular laptop 20 years ago. I wanted a GPU that I could replace.
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One type of USB-C dock that I was interested in was the ones made for Mac’s that use the two USB-C ports and hang off the side. I don’t use Mac’s so I could never really find one for a non-Mac that I liked. I am envisioning a dock similar to that but it would either use a single card slot and just cover the other one because of its length or make use of both card slots. If the dock used a single slot, the other one could be used for a storage card. Likewise, if the dock used both slots, the second slot could just indeed be a storage card. Thus, you could get even more expansion but have something that would be semi-permanently attached to your laptop.
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Sticking with the dock idea, a modular docking station would be sweet. You could have a base that would take the expansion cards. You could have whatever ports you wanted. Need 3 monitor support? Three DP modules. Need loads of USB-A ports? Done. The possibilities are endless. I could see maybe a 6 port dock with an Ethernet jack built in. I’d love to have a configurable docking station since many of them usually fall short by a port or two or have ports I am never going to use.
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I am sure this next one will come in time but a slightly larger capacity storage expansion card would be nice. Especially since there is only a single M.2 slot internally. I’d really like a 4 TB expansion card but that may be a ways off before the capacity and price get to a decent level.
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Finally, and this may take some engineering, but if you could find a way to remove the central support or have it be removable so that a longer expansion card could be inserted. Naturally the longer card would take up both ports though it may not have to actually use both Type C connectors, the larger card may provide some other options for expansion. Maybe the next gen could have two smaller expansion slots and one big one on opposite sides. A longer expansion slot would possibly allow for a second M.2 drive to be inserted, maybe one of the shorter varieties.
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Oooh, just thought of a niche one: an Ethernet port which can regulate Power-over-Ethernet from 48V down to 20V and present as a USB-PD source for the laptop to get its power from. If I’m not mistaken, PoE can only supply in the ~30 watt range, but just putting the idea out there.
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I’d love to have a PC based oscilloscope, for DIY / arduino type projects. (Obviously, not the world’s fastest scope, but enough for audio work, and to look at some interfaces.)
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Full size SD would be a big one for me. I (and many others) still use that for photography, and having a reader around is a must. Although I don’t use it personally, it seems many high-end cameras are starting to move to XQD, so that might be a good one to look into as well.
I also had the idea of integrating a Logitech unifying receiver or at least having an inset USB port to accept one. I thought I was really clever, but I see a ton of people are already on that idea. It would be really nice, since I am always worried about having those things sticking out of ports when a computer is getting knocked around in my bag.
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Friend of mine suggested Zigbee and ZWave controllers. It’s useful for testing/development at least.
Some more ideas:
- IR transmitter
- Simple case to enclose security keys (like Yubikey)
- Firewire
- Serial Port (too big?)
- Logic Analyzer
- a MagSafe like charger cable
- Slide-out Apple Watch charger
- NFC reader/writer
- Environmental sensors (humidity, temperature, pollution)
- Bright notification light
- Down facing dock connector to attach to a desktop dock
- Simple programmable push button
- Pill case
- Slide out magnetic card reader
- Measuring tape
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We need to get some kind of module that we add that can interface with possibly the Dell docking station connector?
A barrel plug for power would be really handy; USB-C for power & data is really convenient but the cables are also really fragile compared to the bulkier, cheaper barrel plugs. Having the option for a right-angled 12V barrel would be nice.