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?"

use a new one for a custom job

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Go naked...

[OmniGeek]

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.

Re:Meh -- not worth the struggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware of the fifty kilograms of raw material that goes into making such a device, and the dozen kilograms of toxic waste produced as a result?

Nevermind that the energy used to make it is lost forever and the refined materials are lost forever into a landfill.

Thanks for doing your part to make efficient use of the things in your life. You're a real asset to the world.

A few issues...

[stienman]

Look up "electronics potting problems" in Google and you'll get all the fun info.

The short and sweet of it is that there are two basic issues: During casting/potting, the epoxy generates a LOT of heat. It can be surprising, and damaging. Check the type of epoxy/resin/casting compound you are using. For such a small amount it probably won't be a problem.

The second issue is the composition of the epoxy and suitability to its purpose. If it has a low resistivity or creates significant capacitance between conductors, then it'll cause problems. If it's not suitable for electronics (ie, degrades over time into other components, is corrosive, etc) then it will cause problems over time.

In short, chances are good you'll be fine for this particular application with hobby grade casting compound. But be prepared for possible data loss if you don't fully understand the subject and act accordingly.

-Adam

Re:Shouldn't make a difference

[networkBoy]

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

lego my lego!

[Deitheres]

Without question, this is the only way to go:

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