FRAME-SLAB – Framework Laptop 12 Mainboard mini-PC case, no screws

A retired Framework Laptop 12 mainboard becomes a 288 × 128 × 24 mm mini PC with zero hardware: the board locates on its own captive screws, the lid snaps on, and your Expansion Cards click into four bays exactly as they do in the laptop.

What it is

• A slim slab: tray, snap-on lid, two end cages, two desk feet, optional VESA 75/100 frame. Six printed parts, nothing else.

• Four Expansion Card bays with the laptop's rail and latch geometry: cards slide in, click, and their plugs land in the board's four USB-C receptacles. A printed flexure finger drops into the card's own latch pocket; press its tab on the cage to release.

• Power button: a flexure tab in the lid with a nub over the board's tact switch. Press the corner, it clicks.

• Cooling kept open: a 13-slot intake grille under the fan (the case stands on rail feet), a matching grille in the lid, and the copper fin stack exhausts through a notch in the rear wall, outside the case, as in the laptop.

• Zero hardware: the board's five captive screw tips drop into pockets, the lid posts clamp it through the screw heads, five hooks hold the lid, the cages slide onto dovetails, feet and VESA frame slide into dovetail grooves under the floor.

• Wall or monitor mount: the VESA frame hangs on the monitor's own M4 screws through keyholes.

Print it

• PLA, 0.2 mm layers, 3 perimeters, 20 % infill, no supports. Every file is exported in its print orientation (tray floor-down, lid top-down, cages dovetail-face-down): do not rotate, let the slicer drop it to the bed.

• Bed: 235 mm needed (tray 230 × 128 mm). Prusa CORE One, MK4, Bambu X1/P1 yes; Ender-3 no.

• 435 g of filament, about 37 h over 3 plates (plate_layout.png; dossier bands ±30 % mass, ±50 % time).

• Files: l12_mini_case_tray.stl, l12_mini_case_lid.stl, l12_mini_case_cage_R.stl, l12_mini_case_cage_L.stl, l12_mini_case_foot_rail.stl (print 2), l12_mini_case_vesa.stl (optional). STEP of every part included. The plate files assume a 256 mm bed; on 250 mm beds arrange the parts yourself.

Assemble it

1. Lower the board in, component side up, fin stack toward the rear notch. Its five screw tips find the pockets; it only fits one way.

2. Press the lid on until the five hooks click. Grille over the fan, button tab at the rear right when you face the front.

3. Slide each cage down onto the tray's end dovetails. Push the cards in until they click.

4. Desk: feet into the outer grooves. Wall: VESA frame into the inner grooves, open end up, hang on four M4 pan heads.

Exploded sheet with balloons and BOM: ASSEMBLY_assembly_doc.png.

Verified (what the design engine checked)

• Every part exports watertight, support-free, no wall under 1.6 mm outside the dovetail lips; four negative controls fail on purpose every rebuild.

• Board, lid, cages, cards, feet and frame checked in their real poses against an exact envelope of Framework's own mainboard CAD (168 solids), plus must-interfere controls that prove the checks bite.

• Lid hooks: 2.9 N per hook to snap on, 0.83 % peak strain (PLA cantilever model); card latch finger 0.45 %; button tab 0.28 %.

• Card insertion sweep: 18 stations, never interfering. Ten tolerance stacks at ±0.15 mm all close positive.

• VESA frame: 14.7 N (2 × 0.75 kg) hanging load gives 0.42 MPa peak (hex8 FEA); creep safety factor 4.8 at 23 °C over one year, 0.96 at 30 °C.

Not verified / known limits

• I do not own a Laptop 12 mainboard yet. All images are renders; every fit above is CAD against Framework's published CAD. The first board to go in will tell. If something binds, comment with a photo and the part name; the whole case regenerates from one script.

• No thermal simulation: Framework does not publish the board's heat load, so this page claims open areas, not temperatures.

• Hang the VESA frame at room temperature, not on a hot enclosure (the creep margin at 30 °C is below 2).

• The USB-C receptacle's 0.6 mm capture and the switch window in Framework's height-limit block are stated assumptions.