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Replacing the Housing on Your Flash Drive?
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?"
Just let me tell you one thing. I tried this and on the table was an open container of turpentine. Apparently the fumes are very damaging, and destroyed my drive when it was open.
Having seen the various odd casings that USB drives are sold in -- tempura, sushi, ducks, a cut-off thumb, dim sum -- as long as you didn't have anything shorting the actual circuitry, and could still slot the drive into a USB port, what you wrap around the electronics is entirely up to you (I recall the pictures of the person who fit the circuitry into the neck of a Barbie doll, so that when you took off the head of the doll, the connector was exposed).
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.
Apparently not.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
In Soviet Russia, Flash Drive housing replaces YOU.
Washed mine twice so far, still works fine. I'm surprised about the melted case in the dryer though, I wouldn't have guessed that it would survive the heat! As for what to do... hmm, buy a new one anyway? They are really cheap now-days. Or you could attack it with duct tape, for a real low tech solution :-)
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."
the casing on one of my flash/thumb/pen/whatever drives was just stupidly big for no good reason, so I took it off. To protect it I just got some clear 5 minute epoxy and layered it on there and just kept turning the the drive while it cured.
You can also put a lanyard hole in a dead space on the board or epoxy something in there and hang it on your keychange. It's working quite well for me.
In Bob we trust.
I got some liquid latex from Home Depot for a similar problem. They talk about using it to coat tool handles, but it works great for coating bare electronics too.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
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
points for duct tape solution. Negative points for suggesting someone not waste a lot of time on tech mod on /.
correct answer is skip work for a few days, spend a ton of time working on some really cool device mod that will make most people say "that guy has waaaay too much free time," post pictures and a step by step of how you did it, let us slash the hell out of your server for a few hours
ôó
While working on my own case mod, I discovered I was allergic to epoxy. BE SURE TO WASH YOUR HANDS ******BEFORE******!!!!!! repeat ******BEFORE******!!!!! using the rest room. my little buddy was the color of an apple and twice as large around. The scariest part was that it didn't hurt at all, even grossly deformed.
So Remember, wash BEFORE, and after, using the restroom.