The reason that those USB adapters get hot is because they have to actively convert 3.3V to 5V. That's an inefficient process and it's what causes excess heat.
My mod doesn't have that problem, so the only heat generated will be from the drives themselves, which don't put out much.
The intention isn't to be faster than the internal bay, it's to add another drive to machines with limited drive support. For instance, X230 only has a single SATA3 drive accessible. You can add an mSATA, but they don't come in very large capacities and the mSATA slot is limited to SATA2. This mod adds a third drive, one that goes up to 2TB at ~SATA3 speeds. So, depending on the model, it can either be a nice addition or a huge addition.
As the other reply noted, I can be reached through a lot of different means, but you can actually do what you're asking to do through Indiegogo! When you select the 2pack and go to the checkout, you can pick sizes individually. You can mix and match.
It was! I had to remove the entire ExpressCard cage on the X230 I was using for testing. However, as noted in your edit, I've since slimmed the drive down further. This is what it looks like now: https://i.imgur.com/A0XEkW5.png Perfectly fits the EC spec.
>An ebay hunt and hours with a soldering iron later, I had a seemingly-working miniPCIe slot. Didn't really have a use for it though, other than bragging rights.
T440p supports this as well! It has a secret third M.2 2280 B-key slot with SATA3 lanes going to it.
This, the 480Mbit/s rating for USB 2.0 is bits, not bytes. USB2 theoretically caps out at 80MB/s (realistically much much lower) whereas even PCI-E 1.1 can hit 250MB/s (2.5Gbit/s before 8b/10b encoding overhead) in a single lane.
Yes, the very first prototype was a fairly poorly-produced FDM. The actual 3d model was high quality, but my brother just got it printed at his college's maker space, by someone who didn't really care to make it look good. It was just meant to be a functional sled.
I will be fine-tuning the final part to look and feel a lot better.
Until recently I was planning to just order them from 3dhubs, since it has decent per-unit pricing for bulk orders, but now I'm going to be buying a printer and doing them myself. This will allow me to print whatever chassis is needed, make revisions whenever needed, and also make it far easier to prototype future mods.
It will be 3d printed, but I'll be using a higher quality ABS filament, and finishing each one nicely. If you know what to look for, you'll be able to tell it was 3d printed, but nobody will notice it sitting inside your machine.
>make it clear that the funds are being used for production rather than for development
Well, that was true until now! The catch is that all "profits" will go towards development of future mods. The existing Expresscard adapter is pretty much fully thought-out.
The perk limits were set for a 100-unit production run. I'm okay exceeding that, and will be increasing the first run to 200 units, but that's probably going to be my cutoff in terms of the campaign. After the campaign I'll be selling them perpetually at the ThinkMods store.
It's really not that big of a deal, honestly. My biggest gripe with the T25 is definitely the display, but not because of the aspect ratio... The damn thing is 220nit. It's crazy dim.
I feel like there's room for a couple of hobbyists to design and manufacture niche mods, as you've suggested. We've already seen it take off with Nitrocaster, and I think there's still room for a few more.
My hope with ThinkMods is that I can offset the overall cost of the brand by having a number of different mods; creating a store where you might pay slightly more than Aliexpress knockoffs, but you get a reliable mod shipped quickly to your door without worrying about returns, or if it'll even work.
I also want to be the first to design new mods. There will only be Aliexpress knock-offs of existing mods. ThinkMods will always have the newest and most innovative, with the service to back it up - and I will always do my best to keep costs down.
The T420 was the last "IBM-feeling" ThinkPad in terms of design, while the T430 was the last competent machine of that generation, only having a few drawbacks while adding many benefits over its predecessor.
The similar thing happened again with the T470 and T480; the T470 is a fantastic machine when it comes to overall build, and the T480 has a few downsides but adds a much-needed spec increase (WQHD panels, 4-core CPUs) without too much drawback.
The T490 was a complete revamp and seriously sacrifices everything that made the T series respectable.
My mod doesn't have that problem, so the only heat generated will be from the drives themselves, which don't put out much.