Anyone ever solder a broken-in-half flash drive back together?

[Kev Williams]

I knew I was going to do this sooner or later, with it sticking out of my garage-shop computer at knee-level... sure enough, my knee got it and snapped it...
353071

This is a 32gig drive, an on it is a mechanics WinXP-pro with all SP's and updates, ditto a verison of 98SE, Gravostyle 98, 5 and 5.3, Corel X3 and X4 with all SP's, many machine drivers, instruction manuals and videos for most of my machines, email files going back 18 years, some business info, tax notes, etc, some photos, I think Office '97, 2003, and Frontpage 2000...

So I really would like to get it back ;) ....

Looks simple enough, solder the 4 tabs back on, and solder the plug housing back on the 2 tabs...

(just noticed, the plug is upside down to the other half, but oh well :) )

[Brett Luna]

It's been decades since I had USAF training in High Reliability Soldering and Micro-modular Repair Techniques but I remember enough to give this advice:

Don't worry about soldering the connector directly to the board. With flash drives being so cheap these days, it'll be less of a headache to solder wires to the plug, then solder the wires to the board just so you can plug it into your PC and transfer everything to another flash drive. You'll need to be careful with the board connections since there are components very close by. It won't take a whole lot of heat to dislodge or damage them.

Alternatively, you could let a data recover service do it for you.

[Lee Schierer]

I think I wold solder wires to the plug and figure out a way to clip the wires to the circuit without using any heat and attempt to recover the data that way.

[Dan Friedrichs]

The solder to the housing is just for mechanical fixation, so it's not even necessary. Nothing to it - just solder those 4 pins back to their pads.

[John K Jordan]

I’m not an expert but I do have a lot of experience with delicate soldering of tiny components, some much smaller than yours. For working on small things like this I use a special soldering station with temperature control, extremely fine tips, sub-millimeter diameter solder, and work under a low-power stereo microscope. With both heat and static issues, one mistake can "brick" a device.

I second the advice here about heat and using wires to connect to the pads on the circuit board. It actually takes quite a bit of heat (relatively) to connect those thick connector legs. What I use for this sort of thing is thin insulated wire - my favorite is very small solid tinned wire made for "wire wrap" circuits. It only takes a tiny bit of heat from the briefest touch with a soldering iron to make the connection Too much heat and components or even traces on the board might be irreparably damaged. I consider a good temperature-controlled soldering iron important, perhaps mandatory. (The original construction of this type of circuit board was done under carefully controlled conditions)

I don't know where to get wire-wrap wire these days but a hard core electronics hobbyist may have some or something appropriate. In fact, the same person will probably volunteer to fix it for you just for fun. These days you can find such people at Makers clubs. (You don't happen to live in East TN do you?)

If you do attempt the repair, since the connector was broken off with significant force you might examine the board carefully for fine cracks and broken traces - I've seen those before but only rarely. Broken traces on the surface can be bridged but lots of things these days are made with multi-layer boards - a cracked board like that can't be reasonably fixed but a data recovery service may be able to read the memory chip directly. (might be exoensive)

Please understand I'm not saying you can't fix it successfully yourself - I have no idea of what equipment or experience you have (or how robust the board is). But just by asking the question indicates you might not have done much of this. Fortunately devices like this are far more robust that they were some years ago so the chances of succeeding are higher. What risk is acceptable to you?!

You probably don't want to hear this, but for future reference (based on decades of experience): I treat USB drives (or any storage device) as temporary storage, capable of losing data at any moment. I make at least two backups of anything important so I always have three copies - data transfer speeds and storage media capacities these days makes this trivial. For your physically vulnerable USB drive, consider attaching it with a short USB cable - perhaps velcro the device to a safer place.

My backup policy may seem excessive to some people. I'll just say that in working and depending on data since the late 70s I never lost a file. I have seen many unbelievable things - one extremely panicked girl from Italy brought her laptop to me containing the only copy of several years of research for her PHD. She said she thought storing the data on the laptop was like putting it in the bank!! Fortunately I was able to recover everything important.

JKJ

[Kev Williams]

Couple of points-- Nothing on this drive can't be replaced, everything on it I put there for convenience sake- and backup. This started when my Win7 computer's DVD drive quit working, and it was easier to load everything on the flashdrive than figure out the DVD problem. Works better than original discs for program loading...

Second point, not once ever have I had a flashdrive go bad, save for the one I left in my pants that got washed & dried ;)

So if I kill it trying to fix it, no real harm done. Just need to be more careful. The irony is, I had a wired 4-port USB hub plugged in sitting on TOP of the computer just so I wouldn't have stuff sticking OUT of the computer's USB port, but the hub never worked right. So I just put the drive back in the front, and paid for it...

[Steve Peterson]

I agree with most posters that it would be easier to solder 4 short wires to make a temporary repair in order to recover valuable data.

Then back it up to a really tiny replacement that only sticks out 1/4" or so. Here is an example https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BGTG2A0/ref=psdc_3151491_t1_B00FJRS6QY

I use one in my car for music. The USB slot in the console is in an awkward spot for a standard size memory stick, but the tiny ones work great.

Steve

[John K Jordan]

So if I kill it trying to fix it, no real harm done.

That's different then, have at it with a soldering gun. My sister once tried to solder something on a radio with a propane torch.

JKJ

[Brett Luna]

I second the advice here about heat and using wires to connect to the pads on the circuit board. It actually takes quite a bit of heat (relatively) to connect those thick connector legs. What I use for this sort of thing is thin insulated wire - my favorite is very small solid tinned wire made for "wire wrap" circuits. It only takes a tiny bit of heat from the briefest touch with a soldering iron to make the connection

Sound advice. 30-gauge wrapping wire is available...surprisingly...on the Radio Shack website so if there's a well-stocked store in the area, I think that'd be a fair choice. It also wouldn't hurt to have some rosin flux on hand. I don't often find the flux in rosin core solder to be much help but with a little bit (very little) applied to the wire and pad it should only take a light touch of the iron to get a good connection.

[Jerome Stanek]

I have some low heat solder that I use from time to time. It will melt with a lighter.

[Myk Rian]

Find a length of telephone cord with single strand wire in it.
Or, forget the whole mess and get a new drive.

[Kevin Catalano]

Possible that the drive was manufactured using ROHS-compliant (lead-free) solder.
It's got a higher melting point than non-compliant solder. If you're using leaded solder to
reinstate the connections, with wrap wire or any other method, cleaning off the old solder with
some wick or a solder sucker will help you get a reliable connection.
Leaded and lead-free solder don't play so nice together.........