it might not fit?
If we make it fit the expansion card would be significantly larger, to account for the space required to house the complete receiver (together with plastic housing).
That do sound sort of overkill however. Maybe we will try something else.
Just take the housing off, the internals are extremely small. Also they run off 3.3v just fine and pull a bit less power. I was not able to get it to sleep at all though so It’ll allways pull the same ammount of power which is not a lot but it is.
I know how much people love the expansion cards… but after looking at the 3 rows of cards of the 16 inch model, I kind of imagine just having a screw-in slot on my frame.
A whole expansion card for the headphone jack? I would like just to screw in the jack input and having a more solid/unified case surface. Now it kind of looks like a super lego.
What about taking the space of two expansion cards to install a second ssd? The expansion cards look kind of amazing, but since I do not plan on switching them constantly, I would appreciate if the expansions were just internal with an optional port slot on the frame.
An SSD only requires one card as it does currently or are you meaning a ful blown NMVe
But supper lego it is
Hmm that would against the two major advantages
Both of which go to the heart of the Framework design ethos
I see that Framework 16 would have audio jack not as built-in port, but available as an expansion card.
What would be nice to have is split audio, with separate headphone output and microphone input, instead of just combo TRRS audio jack.
This way I would not need to take audio splitter with me when I am using headphones and lavalier microphone (instead of headset).
How difficult or costly would it be for an audio jack module with an usb-c connection too?
Seems a bit wasteful to use a full usb connection just for the audio jack and physically the audio jack and the usb-c port should fit fine. I am guessing there will be similar issues to the double usb-c port module idea, where we could loose PD and video alt mode in the usb-c.
If the cost of adding the usbc port while loosing those two is not very high comparef to just the audio jack, it mightbe worth considering.
You are talking about the 16" without a jack.
Doubling up ports has been mentioned, but even getting two USBC ports which are straight throught hasn’t been acheivable.
On the 13" the jack would somehow have to connect to the DAC and in the 16" the DAC would have to be incorporated in the expansion card.
You can read about this issues if you search, reading all this topic though is a bit much 
I know doubling the port is, let’s say, a work in progress, in fact if you read it I mention it on my own post. But the main problem seems to be doubling it while keeping the PD and the video alt mode. Doubling it for data transfer seems to be trivial.
That is why i am saying that adding a usbc port next to the jack, even if it is only for data transfer (as in no PD and no video) would be nice.
I was asking about the dif
I am not sure what your questions have to do with my proposal: having a variation of the expansion card with a jack, that also included a usbc port.
But nevertheless, answering your question:
I doubt you can connect the DAC in the 13" to the expansion card, it would be very hackish and different for every expansion card, specially in different sides. In the 13" you would still have the DAC in the expansion card and you would end up with two of everything, which is why this expansion card does not make a lot of sense for the 13".
But again, not sure what your comment has to do with my suggestion of having a usbc port in the expansion card next to the jack.
I feel I’m going in circles a bit.
The 16" from what I understand has a DAC, getting a USB C through port would seem impossible ~ given there’s no room for 2 x USB C boards I can’t see room for a USB C and a DAC and a 3.5mm Jack socket.
It’s only ‘wasteful’ if, on the FL16, that you need that ‘one more’ usb-c port…when all other 5 ports are already simultaneously occupied.
i.e. The logic is: If you have other 5 ports offering the usb-c port…AND decided not to use them. such that you can form this ‘wasteful’ argument…then the issue isn’t with the port availability.
And then adding more logic to this: If the other 5 ports are already simultaneously occupied…then you’re all plugged in… May I introduce you to a USB-C hub / dock? (i.e. additional weight of a hub isn’t going to matter at that point…because you’re stationary).
The ‘wasteful’ argument is wasteful on that front.
I get your point and that is why in my initial comment, I was saying “if the cost of adding the usbc port is not very high”…
Then it would be a great detail to have an extra usbc port. Because the audio will not take a lot of bandwidth leaving most of it to the usbc port, plus physically the audio jack and the usbc port fit in one expansion card.
If it is going to drive the cost up a lot, then probably is not worth it. But if it is cheap to add, it would be a good improvement to have.
Doubt it would be simple as putting another type C on the card to use the rest of the available bandwidth. The headphone jack’s DAC would present as a USB device, so another port would require a hub. Likely a simpler hub than two type-Cs, since the DAC is only going to be USB2, but it would take some engineering.
In fairness, for a lot of times I don’t actually use headphones with my laptop. I am not a music person. I’d rather prefer more USB, charging port/display out, or Ethernet. However, I do sometimes also fiddle with headphone (and other music/analog stuff), so having one can be very handy.
Having a module also allows user to configure the position of it. While it is somewhat a step backward compared to wiring it to the internal DAC, I felt it is nevertheless acceptable. Especially when you consider the fact that you can plug in multiple headphone jack modules and configure different sound profiles/utility for each.
Inability to combine expansion card slots for bigger expansion cards is kind of a letdown, however I feel like that’s the job of the new Expansion Bay.
2x Expansion Card Expansion Bay? (a.k.a. a Expansion Bay that allow you to plug in 2 Expansion Cards). Maybe 4. idk.
Or just have built-in IO like USB.
Ooo you know what
25G Fiber link. Not sure why anyone would want it, but we do have PCIe cards that do that.
Definitely, but a USB 2 hub plus a DAC can probably fit. The USB 3 lanes could possibly be simply passed though.
I’m curious if it would be possible to have a module that combines a USB port (A or C, whichever can fit) with a 3.5mm headphone jack.
A 3.5mm port is a must-have for me, but using a whole module slot for a small port seems unfortunate.
It’s not just the ports that you need to fit in. You need to fit a good quality audio DAC plus a usb hub to to split the single usb-c on the motherboard side to the audio DAC and whatever extra port you want. I’d wait until Framework releases their 3.5mm module and we see internal pics. I have a feeling there won’t be enough room left.
We discussed the same idea here:
And the next answers.