jebus197 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Hi guys, a friend of mine has brought me a USB stick today on which he claims are some of the most important elements of his life. (I tried to persuade him that keeping stuff like this on USB was a bad idea and that he should back up to the cloud, but he is an older guy and slightly wary of anything that's 'new').The problem is that the front connector part was quite badly crushed. The rest of it appears to be fully intact. All of the solder points appear to be sound and there is no other physical signs of damage that I can see. (Please see images.) Outwardly this looks like a straightforward fix. I have cut an old USB cable and stripped the wires back. This has revealed 4 wires, which are red, green, black and white. I have cut the old connector off with the intention of soldering these pin-outs to these wires.However I am a little confused about which pinouts and which wires are which? I have marked one corner of the USB stick with red marker pen. Hopefully you can see from these images that the pinout near the red marker point is labelled 'USB1'. (The writing is very small however.)Can anyone offer any advice? Starting from the red corner, what order should these wires be attached in? Also does anyone feel that rather than soldering, simple crocodile clips might work in this case? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjak Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Pin = Name / Cable Colour (Description) 1 = VCC / Red (+5 VDC) 2 = D- / White (Data -) 3 = D+ / Green (Data +) 4 = GND / Black (Ground) spikey_richie, goretsky and The Evil Overlord 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 Yes but in what direction is this going from the red marker point next to the pinout marked USB 1? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 Anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted January 28, 2014 Member Share Posted January 28, 2014 http://image.pinout.net/pinout_USB_files/usb-pinout-diagram.gif Flip the USB drive (PCB) in the same orientation as what you see in that pinout diagram as (as if it were a USB cable end that you were looking at face on). The contacts should match the orientation of a regular USB cable. Important, you need to be looking at this as if you are looking at a cable (not the usb socket)! The Evil Overlord 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Account no longer active) Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 The pin closest to the red mark should be pin 1 (considering that the manufacture has used a standard connector - if you could upload photos of the crushed connecter, I could confirm). Also refer to this datasheet: http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/480370001_sd.pdf Do not use crocodile clips - there's too much risk of them moving around and shorting out. I would recommend soldering. In addition to a fine tipped soldering iron, you'll also need tweezers or fine pliers. You'd first need to remove the left over pins from the USB connector that was cut off (by grabbing them with tweezers/pliers, heating them up (with the soldering iron), then lifting them off). Then solder your cable on, but cut back the copper so that only about 2mm is exposed, and twist the strands so they don't fray. Pre-tinning the cable would significantly ease the soldering process. Once pre-tinned, you shouldn't have to add solder - just place a wire on top of it's relative pad and apply heat to both and let the solder across them unify. It is normal for the cable's insulation to shrink a bit when heated. Replacement connectors are available from Newark, Digi-Key, Jameco and maybe even Radio Shack (I'm guessing you're in the US). There's many to choose from. Pin = Name / Cable Colour (Description)1 = VCC / Red (+5 VDC)2 = D- / White (Data -)3 = D+ / Green (Data +)4 = GND / Black (Ground) I confirm the above is correct. jebus197 and goretsky 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted January 28, 2014 Member Share Posted January 28, 2014 I think 68K is correct regarding pin 1. jebus197 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Thanks guys, I'll take a look at the whole thing again in the morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 As a footnote the crocodile clips are pretty small and are insulated, so not a huge issue with them touching each other maybe. I'll see when the clips arrive tomorrow, I of course won't try anything if it looks even remotely dodgy. This guy is literally sh*tting bricks worrying that a huge chunk of his career might have gone down the toilet. The clips are rated at 0.5 amps which is an exact match for the vast majority of USB sticks out there. I agree however that soldering is a better approach. I lack experience of this, but am in the process of leaning. Maybe if I can get this guy's life off this USB stick without resorting to soldering at first (and perhaps risk damaging it), then if I am successful I will probably practice the soldering route, just to gain some experience. I might have to solder it anyway if all else fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted January 29, 2014 Member Share Posted January 29, 2014 Let us know how it turns out. Rather interested! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Veteran Posted January 29, 2014 Veteran Share Posted January 29, 2014 Soldering is easy :) just take your time with it and dont use too much Thief000 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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