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Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive: 180W Power Adapter
- flakiness 3y agoRelated threads: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35277660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35277660 "Framework announces AMD, new Intel gen, 16“ laptop and more" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35286544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35286544 "Framework Laptop 16"
- jeron 3y agothere's some guerilla marketing going on with Framework, I see posts on Framework on front page of HN every few days and I think everyone's tolerating it because we all support Framework's goal. But this is effectively advertisements at this point
- rowanG077 3y agoOr, and hold your horses here, because so many people support Framework here we see so many posts about it.
- Topfi 3y agoMaybe I am missing something, but the Framework focused posts I have seen seem to mostly come from long active accounts by actual community members. Think this is more simply a case of the product being interesting to the people on here. Framework isn't even engaging in any tactics that may help to get more attention organically, like Cloudflare when they group a lot of releases into a very small window to dominate the frontpage.
- nrp 3y agoYep, we don't post these, and often times don't realize that they were posted until we check analytics later.
- bityard 3y agoSome of us are just really excited about a laptop which is intentionally built for upgrades, repairs, and re-usability. The current trend of the household name manufacturers is to solder and glue as many components together as possible, meaning if one thing inside goes ka-plooey outside the warranty then the whole unit is shot, forcing you to buy another. They say their goal is to get their products thinner and thinner (for some reason) but of course we all know the likely real reason is designed obsolescence. Edit: I don't own a Framework laptop yet, but the 16 is near the top of the list of contenders when I upgrade within the next year or so.
- rkagerer 3y agoYeah I think the 16's will be very popular. Do you know if the Ethernet adapter still sticks out past the edge of the unit?
- lillecarl 3y agoThat's how it's designed, I'd stick to a dongle if it's an issue. RJ45 size is pretty legacy. See Lenovo T14 vs T14s. Hopefully they'll be able to design one that doesn't stick out eventually, but a bit extra downwards instead.
- rkagerer 3y agoLegacy? I use them all over the place whenever I travel to client sites, and all over my house and office. More reliable than Wifi.
- robocat 3y ago> designed obsolescence I am old enough to remember “reseating” memory to fix faults. Connectors fail, often disgustingly intermittently. Solder is used for reliability, performance and price reduction: I think most people prefer those attributes versus upgradability (although nice to get choice with Framework!). Connectors now limit performance: there’s a reason why the highest performance memory does not use pluggable formats. HBM2. Remember when cache was a seperate stick of SRAM memory? The majority of PCs were never upgraded, even if they could be. I know, because I would do it for non-technical friends back-in-the-day and eek a couple of years of extra life out of a PC: however without my free labour (and usually trickle-down free parts) those friends would just buy a new PC and be happy. Upgrades are mostly for geeks. Meanwhile good hardware (phones, laptops) is often becoming obsolete due to lack of software upgrades, not lack of grunt. I just bought a new iPad because of this. A friend’s MacBook Air: working fine but needed new battery and no more MacOS upgrades. But also they wanted a new device with a better screen since they spend many hours a day on it, so less value in upgradeability? Yeah, batteries. I haven’t seen a good cost-benefit analysis of sealed devices. Modern batteries now seem to outlive the device, which wasn’t the case 10 years ago with iPhone6. Certainly I appreciate sealed mobile phones that don’t die from water damage.
- Lukas_Skywalker 3y agoI am one of the people that posted a Framework announcement in the past. I do have a Framework laptop, but no relation to the company other than being a customer. I posted the announcement because I follow Framework pretty closely, and figured other people might be interested in a company that works in a direction opposed to the mainstream manufacturers. It's Hacker News after all.
- ranger207 3y agoAdvertisements? On hackernews? Perish the thought
- dheera 3y ago"while also outputting enough power to handle the Graphics Module with a discrete GPU" Oh? This is news to me. Will it have an nVidia graphics card?
- vhodges 3y agothe 16" will have a slot for discrete cards (I don't think it will be a PCIe slot but could be wrong).
- bityard 3y agoNo need to wonder or guess, according to The Horse's Mouth[0], the expansion bays in the 16 will have a PCIe x8 interface. (Not to be confused with the expansion cards from the Framework 13.) [0]: https://frame.work/blog/introducing-the-framework-laptop-16 https://frame.work/blog/introducing-the-framework-laptop-16
- vhodges 3y agoThanks, I remember seeing that, but wasn't sure of the form factor (eg I am not sure you'll be able to plugin any old gpu).
- starkparker 3y agoIt's not a desktop PCIe slot on the back of a laptop, but the interface is already documented. The electrical, shell-fit PCB, and general form-factor specs of the 16" laptop's expansion bay are already published under a CC-BY license by Framework: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay Direct link to the pinout PDF: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay/blob/main/Electrical/Dual-channel%2074P%20FXBeam%2C%20length%2027.75mm%20_Rev%202_(Public%20version).pdf https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay/blob/main/... It's a 4th-gen x8 interface, so there are limits to what "any old GPU" might be capable of performance-wise, but creating a passthrough-port accessory seems possible.
- kayson 3y agoAre there other laptops/chargers out there that support USB PD 3.1 EPR? Curious how those efficiencies compare.
- Kirby64 3y agoThe latest Macbook 140W charger is USB PD EPR; It's not 180W, but it's one of the first running EPR. It appears the Macbook charger gets about ~93% efficiency at ~100W load, and 87% efficiency at ~27W load. No metrics on the 140W charging I can find, though.
- staticfish 3y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22734233/apple-140w-macbook-charging-brick-gan-usb-c-pd-3-1-third-party-chargers https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22734233/apple-140w-macb... MBP 16 inch in 2021 was apparently the first PD 3.1 apple charger
- megous 3y agoThat's still 12W to get rid of from a small enclosed space. I wouldn't want to operate this at peak power all the time. And SMPS don't usually have peak efficiency at rated output power. Do these things re-negotiate power contract, or will they just go into thermal shutdown when overheated?
- foxbyte 3y agoThe inclusion of GaN technology in Framework's new 180W adapter is a game-changer. GaN's superior power efficiency and ability to sustain higher voltages translate to smaller, more efficient charging . Great to see tech reducing waste and improving performance!
- megous 3y agoWe don't know how efficient this is. Single number given in the article doesn't mean anything. SMPS come with an efficiency curve over the whole range of provided power. It can be 70% efficient at 20W or 85% at 180W and 93% only at 70W. Complete information was not provided by the article. And USB-C supplies can also switch voltages, so the efficiency will also depend on the voltage (both input and ouput, as this can probably be used in both 110V and 230V grids)... It's just marketing... "up to 93%" :)
- yftsui 3y agoExactly, the mentioned components used are not impressive if at all. Guess what, almost all named brand laptop power supply has an Onsemi chip, the only difference is big manufacturers like Delta or Flextronics use customized Onsemi chips made for them. What made it even more interesting is mentioning Weltrend in a marketing material, almost 50% of projects I used to work on include a cost down part to switch from TI chips to Weltrend or similar. Whoever wrote this material doesn’t understand what they really implies.
- Tade0 3y agoI happen to have a 180W adapter that came with my 2020 laptop. Crude measurements with a ruler indicate that Framework's unit is approximately 23% smaller by volume. I don't know how far this field moved forward over the past three years, but I see this as a win - mine is especially annoying to handle due to its length - ~150mm. Would love to know something about the weight, because that thing is a brick, which for this reason I don't normally take along with me on trips and opt for the 60W USB-C charger instead.
- hinkley 3y agoI've gotten sucked into videos of making low-power low-noise rack mount servers for home offices lately and that's come up a couple times. Yeah you have a PSU that's 90% efficient under load, and stays above 80% over a reasonable range of power levels, but some of them are pretty bad when you get down to 40 watts.
- levitate 3y agoFramework's modular design has been advertised as a solution to upgradability, which is huge, but I see the real strength in being able to have a GPU plugged in when I'm using my laptop at home, and swapping it out for an extra battery when I'm using my laptop away from an outlet. Being able to transform the capabilities of the laptop based on your situation is a huge game changer.
- varispeed 3y agoInteresting that nobody came with a concept of a desktop PC, but as a laptop (commercially) before. Most like due to perceived niche, no standard format of laptop motherboards, not easy to buy laptop motherboard off the shelf. Then also the technology was evolving, so manufacturers maybe didn't want to restrict themselves to the certain layout and way how components can be laid out and connected.
- jjice 3y agoThere was a short period where external GPUs that could connect to your laptop were kind of big a few years back. The never really took off though, and that was the only big component I saw that with.
- theWreckluse 3y agoAny idea why they didn't take off?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mschild 3y agoGuess on my part, but likely cost. The cheapest egpu case I could find is 300 Euros and that's just the case with an internal PSU. You still need to buy an incredibly expensive GPU to put into it. So now you're spending probably 1k just for the laptop, plus 300 for the case and an additional, let say, 350-400 on the GPU. For that amount of money, most would probably look for good laptops that have an integrated one, buy a handheld, a console, or just don't want to spend that amount of money on it.
- saltysalt 3y agoI am very happy with my Framework laptop, and love their vision of modular design and upgrades.
- betimsl 3y agoHoly moly; 180? Sufficient to power an entire house, my God.
- geoffeg 3y agoYou must have a very efficient house.
- betimsl 3y agoActually I do. I have two solar panels, 60W usbc power brick for my laptop and phone. And a small light...it was a joke. OK? Why on the defense? :)
- acomjean 3y agowe need a sarcasm tag/symbol.. That would be super useful. I honestly can't tell tone anymore.
- betimsl 3y agoI would not say we need tag or symbol. First of all it was not sarcasm at all, just a plain joke. And second, instead of a symbol, what we need is to read more books.
- xxs 3y agoif "my God" part wasn't evident, and you need a mark for sarcasm/joke/take the piss... I guess that part is beyond help
- orbital-decay 3y agoNothing new under the sun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
- LoganDark 3y agoWait, this isn't a deep dive at all, this is just an ad. (Is this a deep dive for the laptop itself or a deep dive for the adapter? I can't tell.)
- TOGoS 3y agoI guess a deep dive would have had to get into more gritty details about USB-PD? Or maybe show how they crammed all the requisite capacitors and heat dissipators into the thing. It did answer my question, though, which was "how do they pull that much power over a USB-C cable?" A: USB PD 3.1 allows up to 48V * 5A to be supplied so long as the cable has the right e-marker on it. Though honestly, I would be careful trying to get deeper than that. The USB standard has become a bit of a spaghetti mess. Unless you are building your own equipment or trying to daisy-chain some DisplayPort stuff through some Thunderbolt 3 hubs you're probably better off thinking of it as `capabilities(USB network) = min(capabilities(computer), capabilities(cable), capabilitieS(hub))` and then dropping 50$ for a nice cable that you can brag to your friends about ("ALL MY POWER, PERIPHERALS, AND VIDEO OVER THIS ONE [insanely overengineered] WIRE WOOHOOQ") Anyway, my two cents are that I'm glad they kept the new power brick mostly-the-same-dimensions as the old ones so that my 3D-printed gridbeam-mountable power brick holders[1] continue to work. [1] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5400078 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5400078
- LoganDark 3y ago> I guess a deep dive would have had to get into more gritty details about USB-PD? Or maybe show how they crammed all the requisite capacitors and heat dissipators into the thing. I personally went in with the expectation of seeing the PCB inside the adapter, but they don't even show that. :(
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MichaelZuo 3y agoYeah this is not anywhere close to a 'deep dive'. Surprised Framework would editorialize the title so much, not a good sign.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deepsun 3y agoI don't understand why they don't put two or three USB-C ports to the charger. It could serve as universal charger for other devices as well.
- wmf 3y agoObviously that would cost more. Anker sells that BTW.
- hinkley 3y agoApple has a couple models with 2 ports now but none of them are particularly beefy. One is only 35 watts, which means it's basically saving you from routing a whole bunch of current into your Air and out the other side to charge your giant cellphone.
- londons_explore 3y agoSo why didn't this support the 240 watt mode (ie. 48v 5 amps)? I can't really envision any standard component choices which would support 36 volts and yet not support 48 volts...
- Dork1234 3y agoA Power Adapter like this would be great for a small 3d printer.