
ThinkPad Mods, Done Right - lelf
https://thinkmods.store/
======
yjftsjthsd-h
That's a slightly odd name for a store with only one product. Hope to see more
in the future:)

~~~
VvR-Ox
I agree!

It would be awesome to see more stuff like:

\- BIOS with core/libreboot[0]

\- mainboard replacement (e.g. to support USB 3) [1]

\- better screens [2]

\- something to deal with that awful touchpad

There is already people out there doing it and clearly TP's are some of the
most used laptops on this planet for a reason so there is a market.

[0]:
[https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/x200.html](https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/x200.html)
[1]:
[http://panacek.net/post/frankenpad_x225/](http://panacek.net/post/frankenpad_x225/)
[2]: [https://hackaday.com/2019/02/21/hack-a-thinkpad-
display/](https://hackaday.com/2019/02/21/hack-a-thinkpad-display/)

~~~
K0SM0S
Don't get me wrong, I really want all those things. So much so that I actually
spent a hefty sum on my current TP (X1 Yoga '3rd', 2018) to get all those
things 'guaranteed' _now_ and _option_ for later (I'm not much of a hardware
tinkerer, but I could already see 2028 and me tweaking it up).

That being said,

I think it's still a small market. All of TPs I mean, new, used & yet to come
( _I 've got a solid theory that ThinkPads may outlast the heat death of the
universe, paper coming soon(tm)_ ). Seriously, the reason is that the used
market is precisely interesting because it's cheap (it's almost a commodity
market at that point) whereas the new market is becoming niche like all
laptops, like desktops before — think that, for all their glory, GPUs only
sell in the single-digit millions to consumers per year — no wonder the juice
for these lies in enterprise.

So I think you've got room for maybe a few small businesses, small custom
shops of a single to few employees, shipping worldwide of course (and I'm not
a logistics expert but this is the kind of space where ideally you really want
to 'shopify' directly from factory to customer because each cent will be hard
fought for). Most of what people use to tweak TPs is already cheap as hell on
Aliexpress or eq.

I wish it weren't so. Please tell me I''m wrong about this.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
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.

~~~
K0SM0S
Well, you sound like you've really got the ideal approach, just about the best
business model IMHO for that kind of endeavor. Hope it goes _really well_.

I would just encourage you to allow yourself to make _enough_ margin to not
just keep the business afloat but grow it — notably to fuel your apparent
desire to design great things, enforce great QA, etc. These things have a
cost, that people are willing to pay for as you suggest, and it is always a
disservice to everyone to undervalue one's work. ;-)

So, seeing as how your heart is in the right place — go TPs! — rest assured
you won't overcharge any time soon. People will tell you if that day ever
comes. :wink again:

Have a great one, and thanks for the awesome initiative. Best of courage and
success to you!

------
zoomablemind
Nicely looking idea. Not sure about the benefit though. SSD can be fitted in
ThinkPad in several ways already 1) swap internal HDD 2) use the optical
drivebay, needs a caddy 3) attach M2 SSD instead of WWAN card (this option is
slower) 4) attach externally via eSATA (with adapter cable)

All of the options above are bootable (not sure about eSATA, but can test).

One more option is nice, of course, though not sure that booting off
ExpressCard SSD could be directly supported by the BIOS.

In my experience, the most demanded mod was HDMI adapter for DisplayPort, just
to attach an occasional larger screen/TV.

~~~
numpad0
Those older ThinkPads predate M.2 standard and since M.2 is longer than
mSATA/mPCIe they simply don’t fit in case they needed a PCIe based storage.

~~~
chx
> M.2 is longer than mSATA

There are 42mm long M.2 drives and as all M.2 cards, they are 2mm wide. The
largest 2242 SATA drives are 1TB from such reputable brands as Kingspec and
Dogfish and I strongly recommend avoiding them like the plague. I'd stick with
the Transcend MTS 430S at 512GB, it's the first SSD in such a size with a DRAM
cache, launched last year. (At least the first retail, no idea what goes on
with industrial SSDs.)

Full height Mini PCIe cards are 30×50.95 mm. You can indeed buy an msata to
2242 adapter and it's cheap as dirt because it is completely passive, just the
PCB with the right edge connector with the M.2 key B connector mounted on top.
Zero electronics necessary. It's just SATA.

For the sake of completeness, I must note some newer 2242 drives are key M /
NVMe / PCI Express and I haven't seen such an adapter yet. The Sabrent 2TB
Rocket is the largest 2242 SSD I am aware of and it's key M.

------
ohazi
It would be nice to know what material/process is used to make the plastic(?)
enclosure. Given that the funding goal is $1400 / $1600, I'm assuming it's 3d
printed rather than injection molded, but maybe they were able to get a
standard part?

Otherwise, this appears to be a (rare) good example of a well-planned
crowdfunding campaign. The actual design is either completely or almost
completely de-risked via one or more prototypes. Both the funding goal and
anticipated timeline appear reasonable, and make it clear that the funds are
being used for production rather than for development. Number of reward items
in each category is capped so that sudden unexpected popularity doesn't doom
the project.

~~~
culturestate
I don't think it's a commercial part - if you look closely at the photo of the
first prototype, the left side of the sled shows some distinct lines that look
like FDM layers.

It also seems like the maker is producing these in small batches in his home
lab, so 3D printing makes sense. That said, the CAD model of v2 seems to show
some kind of ejector or retention mechanism (in green, again on the left)
which could be tricky to print reliably.

~~~
JorgeGT
A lot of people are integrating FDM or other AM techniques into their
production, so it doesn't meant it will be home-produced. You can order small
batches from Stratasys, 3D Systems or any of the other big manufacturers and
you get reliable parts with good tolerances and post-treatment etc., without
committing to with injection molding.

~~~
culturestate
That's true! I think next-gen manufacturing is actually one of the most
interesting areas of research going right now.

In this case, though, I meant _commercial part_ more like "generic component
that you could buy from fifty random aliexpress suppliers" rather than simply
"part produced commercially."

~~~
JorgeGT
I agree! It's a very interesting new world. And now I get what you meant. I
think the best term for that is COTS (commercial off-the-shelf).

------
jasoneckert
I've been using laptops now for 28 years.

I can't think of a more rugged, long-lasting, and well-performing laptop than
the Thinkpad series.

As a result, I can see this product being a total hit. Most of my students buy
used Thinkpads because they're inexpensive and easy to upgrade, so I'm going
to show them this link!

~~~
xorcist
The trackpoint is way beyond anything else ergonomically on a laptop. The
hands never leaves the typing position. When correctly calibrated, it's
controlled only by applying varying pressure. I've yet to find anything that
works as good.

For those of us who find chiclet style keys a step in the wrong direction, and
maybe even prefer matte displays to glossy, older Thinkpads is pretty much the
pinnacle of laptops as a productivity tool.

~~~
iso1210
I really need a new laptop, my old t410s is falling to bits. I'd love to get a
new thinkpad but since they changed they keyboards about 2012ish I'm been
procrastinating.

------
IntelMiner
Does that "51nb" Chinese company still make modded Thinkpads?

I bought their "51nb X62" model Thinkpad a few years back from an eBay user,
though unfortunately it eventually died.

It was a motherboard replacement of the old Thinkpad X60 from many years ago.
Replacing the old single core CPU with an Intel Broadwell era i5 and up to 32
gigs of memory

You could also install an M.2 SSD in it I believe. Along with USB 3 and other
useful new features

~~~
robbseaton
[http://www.cnmod.cn/](http://www.cnmod.cn/)

------
Evidlo
Semi related, but has anyone used the T420's ExpressCard port for USB3
expansion?

I bought a USB3 card [0], but the write speed is only barely faster than USB2
for flash media. (interestingly, the write speed _is_ much faster when
uploading an image to my FPGA dev board)

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/ExpressCard-34mm-Adapter-Dual-
Port/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/ExpressCard-34mm-Adapter-Dual-
Port/dp/B0045BLP1S)

~~~
1996
I did, it runs way too warm.

I am a bit afraid this mod will have the same problem.

Instead of plastic, it would be better to use a material that can conduct
heat.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
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.

------
hoistbypetard
I'm afraid the 2242 requirement makes this much less of a slam dunk than it
should be. Last time I looked for one, only the Toshibas were available as
2242 NVMe drives. (Many more similarly-sized drives are available, but they
use SATA which won't work with this adapter.)

I've been looking for an upgrade to my 2242 PCIe drive but they rarely appear,
and usually by the time I find one you can't actually order it anymore.

~~~
microcolonel
It's a major upgrade, if your best storage is currently SATA 2; even if you
have to select a relatively obscure SSD manufacturer.

~~~
rasz
Which Thinkpad would that be? The switch over to SATA 3 happened between T410
and T420, coincidentally thats the same time they switched from Gen1 (PCIe
1.1, 2.5Gbps) to Gen2 (PCIe 2.0, 5Gbps). SATA 2/3 is faster than single lane
of PCIe 1.1/2.0.

example test on T410
[https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/32260935657.html](https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/32260935657.html)
180MB/s max read out of a drive easily reaching 600MB/s in normal
circumstances [https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6961/plextor-m6e-black-
edi...](https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6961/plextor-m6e-black-
edition-128gb-pcie-ssd-review/index4.html)

TLDR: its ALWAYS inferior to simply using SATA drive in HDD slot.

~~~
microcolonel
I forgot about the ExpressCard being one lane of PCIe; what a waste.
ExpressCard seems extra silly since it was often available on machines with
USB 2.0, which was faster than PCIe 1 1x. No wonder it never took off for
most.

~~~
rasz
Single lane of pcie 2.0 is over 14x faster than usb 2.0 (realistic 35 MB/s in
optimal circumstances), pcie 1.0 is still >7x faster.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
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.

------
dabmancer
Why did people buy these? I just have a 2.5" SSD in mine and RAM has always
been the bottleneck. A cool project from a technical perspective IMO.

~~~
1996
Because some of us enjoy having software raid setups in a laptop!

This will allow raid10 setup with 3 drives for best read performance, e.g.
"\--level=10 --layout=f3"

You can also do the o3 if you want best write performance

------
zwayhowder
Given it's limited to SATA3 speeds, why not just replace the internal hdd with
a SATA3 SSD? My X260 is very happy with a 2tb Samsung drive. I suppose this
would be lighter, but we are talking about 50g of extra weight for a 2.5" SSD.

Some of the future mods though look very cool. I particularly would like the
Unifying Mod & WHQD mods.

~~~
jchw
Is it actually limited to Sata 3 speeds? Assuming ExpressCard can at least get
you a PCI Express 2.0 lane I’d expect it to be at least a couple hundred MB/s
faster at least theoretically. Also I assume NVMe’s long command queue really
benefits SSD performance for random access, so I suspect it may even be worth
it just for the interface...

~~~
bluedino
The PCIe 2.0 standard doubles the transfer rate compared with PCIe 1.0 to 5
GT/s and the per-lane throughput rises from 250 MB/s to 500 MB/s.

So it's actually less than SATA 3 speeds (600MB/s)

------
Scene_Cast2
Unrelated story. Back in the day, I got myself a T510. It was a tinkerer's
dream - heck, I even learned how to hand-solder SMD on it.

Besides the standard mods (swapping the screen and upgrading to the W-series
heatsink), I noticed that there was a spare spot on the PCB that looked like
it was made for some component. Looking up the teardown of the more
professional variant, turns out that it was missing a connector for a mini-
PCIE slot. 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.

I eventually killed that laptop by bricking the BIOS, and then ruining the
motherboard while trying to resolder the SPI BIOS chip.

Now, I have a 701CS lying around. Been trying to find the right hardware to
restomod it.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
>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.

------
huxflux
God I love my ThinkPads! going to order two tonight.

------
wilhil
Is there really a market for modding a 7+ year old laptop? I know thinkpads
used to be great (And some still are), but, I just don't get the point in
trying to give more life to something so so old - most likely ~3rd-4th gen
intel.

~~~
mhb
I'd be happy to buy a replacement battery for my X220 from a non-sketchy
source if I knew it had new, matched cells and wasn't going to explode.

~~~
1996
If you have sources for X61 batteries tell me!

I left a good one in it while docked but unplugged, the dock apparently killed
the battery.

I'm pondering whether changing the 16550 cells make senses

------
bluedino
I modified several ThinkPads to use the Wintec Expresscard SSD's back when
they were still available. Although they weren't capable of great benchmark
scores, they were way, way better than the 2.5" and 1.8" HDD's of the day
(think 80GB)

[http://www.wintecind.com/features/filemate/ssd/wf_expresscar...](http://www.wintecind.com/features/filemate/ssd/wf_expresscard_ssd.html)

------
jotm
I'd like to see the real prototype myself: those connectors on top of a PCB
seem too thick to fit into an EC slot - but there have been SSDs made in that
form factor.

Edit: nevermind, he found a thinner connector. I should've read the Indiegogo
page before commenting :)

Other than that, this adapter would be great for any laptop with an
ExpressCard slot. I can't believe no one's made one before. Kind of late now
that new laptops don't have the port, though.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
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](https://i.imgur.com/A0XEkW5.png) Perfectly
fits the EC spec.

------
deltron3030
Are all Thinkpads with ExpressCard/54 supported?

[http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ExpressCard_slot](http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ExpressCard_slot)

I have an old X200 laying around and I was thinking of reactivating it, but
it's from 2008..

~~~
hddherman
According to this Reddit thread, it should be:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/evtje2/its_finall...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/evtje2/its_finally_here_the_launch_of_thinkmods/ffxvxaw/)

------
Causality1
Wouldn't you be better off installing a SATA SSD instead of limiting your nvme
drive to expresscard speeds? Besides, if you've got an expresscard slot by far
the best thing to put in it is a bluetooth mouse.

~~~
yttriumtyclief
>the best thing to put in it is a bluetooth mouse

If you're talking about a dongle and not a mouse itself, I've got a mod coming
for that too~

~~~
Causality1
No, there are a series of folding Bluetooth mice that fit entirely inside
Express card and PC card slots.

------
chaz6
Does anyone know how to get in touch with the project founder? Kickstarter
does not seem to provide any way. I would like a two pack, with one of each
size, but right now you have to choose one or the other.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I thought you could just do two transactions?

The founder is on the
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad)
subreddit and discord,
[https://www.reddit.com/u/yttriumtyclief](https://www.reddit.com/u/yttriumtyclief)
or Discord [http://discord.gg/Ybdz7AS](http://discord.gg/Ybdz7AS) @yttrium.

Launch post on the subreddit a few days ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/evtje2/its_finall...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/evtje2/its_finally_here_the_launch_of_thinkmods)

------
ngcc_hk
Can you run linux on it? Just want a dual boot win/linux portable, not
necessarily latest.

~~~
boring_twenties
Can an old Thinkpad run Linux? Is that the question? The answer is,
definitely. Source: I have seven of them.

------
MisterTea
Excellent idea!

With NVMe now a thing it feels as if the express card slot is ready for a
comeback.

------
jaxn
Would this have any real performance benefit over a traditional SSD?

~~~
2fast4you
Size, and I’m assuming speed but I don’t know anything about the express card
interface so it might be slow.

Also if you just want to cram more drive in your laptop

~~~
arm
Mentioned on the linked Indiegogo page¹:

“ _What 's the speed limit?

The ExpressCard slot is limited to a single PCI-E 2.0 lane. This means the
real-world speed bottleneck is 500MB/s, which is roughly the speed of SATA
6Gb/s (SATA 3).

Pre-Sandy Bridge models (T410/X201 and older) are limited to PCI-E 1.1, which
is roughly 250MB/s._”

――――――

¹ — [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thinkmods-expresscard-
nvm...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thinkmods-expresscard-nvme-
adapter/)

