Surprised to learn that magnesium is lighter than aluminum. Is it also more expensive? There must be some reason people still mostly use aluminum.
Aluminum alloys are also generally stronger than magnesium alloys.
Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
61–70 of 238 posts
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#62Surprised to learn that magnesium is lighter than aluminum. Is it also more expensive? There must be some reason people still mostly use aluminum.
Magnesium is lighter than Aluminum because it is in the 2nd group of the periodic system to the left of Aluminum residing in the 3rd. The latter has got one additional proton and a couple of neutrons more.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#63Still waiting for the other shoe to drop with a pricing announcement. I keep getting almost excited about the Framework 16", but then I'm remember it's probably going to be well over $2500USD for a decently specced model (without a GPU even) and my excitement quickly dissipates.
There's a cost to buying machines that are sustainable and use well paid workers, just like there's a cost to cage free eggs. I believe Foxconn, the main assembler for Apple, still sleeps 6 workers to an apartment.
> I believe Foxconn, the main assembler for Apple, still sleeps 6 workers to an apartment.
The thing is, if Chinese labor becomes more expensive, these workers will get replaced either by an automated factory elsewhere (maybe in America!) and unemployment.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#64Good detail hear about the process if making the case - really interesting to read. Injection molding semi-liquid magnesium seems…quite difficult to say the least! Tangentially, I wish there was some online resources for learning how best design for manufacture for things like laptops and cases. Contract CNC fabrication is really inexpensive these days until you need 10 iterations to fix your dumb mistakes.
Thixomolding is an incredible process, I'm glad it's becoming more utilized. It really is the best for lightweight, strong, and super thin parts like laptop chassis.
About 10 years ago I worked for a medical device company and we used thixo parts for a portable ultrasound system (think chunky laptop form factor). In my first few weeks, I had a proto part that needed a rework, so I chucked the thixomolded part into the bandsaw to chop it up, before the shop manager chewed me out for almost setting the shop on fire (who let this clueless engineer into my shop...etc etc). Magnesium dust is stupid flammable and burns incredibly fast and hot.
There were only a handful of vendors in the world at that time that had the capability to mold the size of parts we needed, it's a vastly different process to casting other metals, in part due to the hazards of the material itself. Warning to all overly ambitious framework owners: careful if you decide to chop or drill into that case!
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#65Surprised to learn that magnesium is lighter than aluminum. Is it also more expensive? There must be some reason people still mostly use aluminum.
Magnesium is harder to machine. The chips produced can be highly flammable.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#66Great that in some months there will be a high-end laptop that you don't have to throw in the garbage bin once a ram chip fries. High expectations.
My definition of “high end” in 2023 is a battery that last 14+ hours of general use, doesn’t sound like a 747 when I open two Chrome tabs side by side and won’t fry my nuts when I put it on my lap.
"Frying of the nuts" has been in the changelog quite some time.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#67Are we at the point where buying and assembling a laptop, like building a desktop PC, can be done by any enthusiast?
If you buy all components from Frame.work, yes. Nobody else to my knowledge is making compatible components for their laptops though, so we're still a ways away from having an ecosystem of options like desktop PCs have. If you're not an EE, the only things you can buy 3rd party are RAM, SSD, and Wi-Fi modules. Which you can do the same for Thinkpads. That said -- I do appreciate that partial upgrades are possible wit…
To date, framework's laptops are the only ones I've ever seen that were designed with replacing the motherboard as a possible upgrade path. There are a few Thinkpad series out there that by happy coincidence, you can swap parts and upgrade screens or maybe change to a newer generation's motherboard.. but generally that's more of a coincidence and not an intent.
I'm glad framework is trying this out. I'm not surprised about the battery life, but pretty much anything not made by Apple will have that issue lol.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#68Still no trackpoint.
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#69I find the battery life on my framework 13 really bad (ubuntu installed). There's some issue where the battery drains fairly quickly in suspend which requires enabling "deep sleep" mode, but it still drains a lot faster than other laptops I've had. And then the battery life in general isn't very good; I'd say ~2 hours at full brightness with some video streaming mixed in with normal browsing. I wonder if that's the s…
In case you haven't seen, in April, Framework published an official Optimizing Ubuntu Battery Life guide that is quite useful: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/optimizing-ubuntu-bat... If that doesn't help, I'd recommend reviewing some of the resources: * Framework Forum Linux battery life tuning thread (300+ messages) https://community.frame.work/t/guide-linux-battery-life-tuni... * anarcat's Framework Battery…
Super helpful, thanks!
Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure
#70Any ETA for 16” ?