Happy ending to a broken USB flash stick

[inflex]

This is probably pedestrian-grade for a lot of you, but I thought I'd just share a job that came through the other day. Probably the 'worst' part of this was that the USB D+/D- pads had only the tiniest of vias next to them to get a foothold for the 32AWG WW wire. If it had gone beyond this I'd have to then look up the controller chip and find out which pins the D+/- lines were going to and tap on to them.

Client got everything back of course, ~3GB of irreplacible data; so for now I'll keep a copy of the image for ~6 months... you never know.

Attachments

All good - time to make a complete image of the stick and then worry about pulling data from it afterwards.

Plugged in... at least there wasn't any magic smoke released :)

V+/- were easy enough to tap, but the D+/- were a bit iffy. Still, a decent magnifying desk lamp and some gentle work with an Xacto gave me just enough footing to solder on the pair of wires.

As supplied from the client. They tried to flatten it back out after bending it.

[Touchclarity]

I see these most weeks, and have found that a good magnifying lamp or in extreme cases a microscope, is invaluable.... You'll be surprised what levels you can get down to with the proper tools.... and steady hands..


Well done .... and thanks for sharing...

[inflex]

Yes, for manufacturing/assembly I tend to try stick with nothing smaller than 0603, though now and then you have to break out the 0402's, never willingly (would rather design in a 1206 jumper on the other side). Recently I've been fixing iPhone PCBs and it's really pushed the limits on my equipment with its obsession for using 01005 even when it's far from required.

I'm on the look out for a good binocular (or even tri) microscope, cheap enough if you're in the USA from Amazon but the shipping to here in Australia is obscene ($399 scope, $650 shipping ).