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Replacing the Housing on Your Flash Drive?

Posted by Cliff on from the naked-hardware dept.

TheFarmerInTheDell asks: "I managed to wash my USB flash drive this past weekend (note to self: check your pockets better before doing laundry) and to my surprise, it still works. The problem is that the clothes dryer managed to beat up the plastic housing, and it no longer holds the innards in place as it should. Trying to plug the drive into a USB port is a difficult proposition since the whole mechanism slides into the plastic housing, instead of sliding into the USB port. Rather than using a super glue or an epoxy solution to hold the electronics in place, I was thinking that a custom body would be a cool way to go. I can cast it in resin and have whatever shape I want for the drive, but I am not sure that it will be a good thing to do. Has anyone done anything like this, and if so were there any problems? Are there any issues about not having an air space to help dissipate the heat that the chip generates? Aside from the obvious concerns about allowing the drive to fit into the USB port of a computer, is there any reason that the drive cannot be housed in any shape that I want?"

4 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. use a new one for a custom job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you want to make your own custom case, I would recommend using the innards from a new device. Otherwise, you may go to a lot of trouble making something really cool only to discover that the spin cycle actually did do some damage to the flash memory.

  2. Go naked... by OmniGeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've seen flash drives that are just a plastic-coated PC board. The heat generated won't be a problem (the USB spec limits the power you can draw to fairly negligible levels).

    Oh, and -- don't trust the washed USB drive with critical data, there may be corrosion that takes a while to manifest itself.

    --

    "My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
  3. Re:Shouldn't make a difference by networkBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Note:
    Some epoxy formulations shrink and/or expand as they cure, others are conductive to various levels.
    double check what you are using to be sure.
    -nB

    --
    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  4. lego my lego! by Deitheres · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Without question, this is the only way to go:

    Lego USB flash drive... that will give you near-infinite geek points (which can now be exchanged for frequent flier miles!) ;-)

    --
    Just like driving a car:
    (D) to go forward
    (R) to go backward