Last fall I got a flash drive from a college. Since it was free and I didn't really care for the case, I stripped it down to it's circuit board and used it that way for months (I even used it to install Debian on my new laptop, but that's for another post). At some point I realized it needed an actual case and started glancing looking around my basement for possibilities. After throwing around a few ideas (AA, candy/gum case, etc) I decided on the humble mechanical pencil lead case.
After thinking about how I would actually modify the case, I realized I would have to overcome two main problems:
- Fitting the wide jump drive in the case
- Making the drive slide in and out (I decided on this design because there was too much lost space in the case if the drive was always sticking out. Plus, that would be too easy :))
I would also have to make sure my solutions avoided unnecessary damage to the flash drive and the lead case.
Flash drive at the beginning of modifications (with only a bit shaved off):
In order to fit the drive in the case I first looked at how much I could shave from the circuit board edges. However, even shaving the board to the edge of the components would not be enough to make it fit. Thus, I had to shave out grooves in the case for the board.
Flash drive with the edges shaved off:
I originally thought I might be able to use heavy grit sand paper to cut the grooves. I glued a strip of sand paper around a zip tie and started sanding away on one case to see what happened. My perpetual overestimation of sand paper's ability to remove material combined with the fact that the heaviest sand paper I had was 320 grit quickly doomed this plan. Next I thought about using the file on my leatherman. It was long, straight, and better at removing material than the zip tie. it was even thin enough to produce channels that were only a bit thicker than the circuit board. I put masking tape on the sides of the file so that it would dig channels in the middle of the case. This seemed to be working quite well. Unfortunately, when I tried to fit the shaved drive into the case, it didn't it. The grooves were deeper near mouth of the case. In a last ditch effort (at this point I had already shaved the circuit board down) I grabbed a drill and started working down the sides of the case with a small bit. This worked surprising well considering the fact that it was probably not correct drill technique :/ . If I were to ever repeat this project, I would prefer to use a drill press and see if I could cut away a half cylinder without having to misuse a drill.
The case with the grooves cut:
I will leave solving problem number two for another post.
Flash drive with the edges shaved off:
I originally thought I might be able to use heavy grit sand paper to cut the grooves. I glued a strip of sand paper around a zip tie and started sanding away on one case to see what happened. My perpetual overestimation of sand paper's ability to remove material combined with the fact that the heaviest sand paper I had was 320 grit quickly doomed this plan. Next I thought about using the file on my leatherman. It was long, straight, and better at removing material than the zip tie. it was even thin enough to produce channels that were only a bit thicker than the circuit board. I put masking tape on the sides of the file so that it would dig channels in the middle of the case. This seemed to be working quite well. Unfortunately, when I tried to fit the shaved drive into the case, it didn't it. The grooves were deeper near mouth of the case. In a last ditch effort (at this point I had already shaved the circuit board down) I grabbed a drill and started working down the sides of the case with a small bit. This worked surprising well considering the fact that it was probably not correct drill technique :/ . If I were to ever repeat this project, I would prefer to use a drill press and see if I could cut away a half cylinder without having to misuse a drill.
The case with the grooves cut:
I will leave solving problem number two for another post.
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