Replacement SD Card Reader?

[exartemarte]

This is my NAS server - the clamp is holding the SD card in place because the plastic card holder is broken.



It was happily serving away until it suddenly became inaccessible. It wouldn't reboot, and the problem turned out to be the card holder - at some point the thin plastic that holds the card in place had cracked and when I checked the seating of the card the broken plastic fell off. It's not a very rubust structure.

My first thought was to glue a piece of flat plastic across what is left of the holder, but the material seems to be impervious to super glue and there isn't enough of it to provide purchase for anything else. By using the clamp I have been able to check that the Pi is otherwise okay - it is - but that's obviously not a long-term solution. I might be able to glue the card in place but that would make future upgrades difficult.

I haven't been able to find a replacement card holder that matches the pinout (or even the number of pins) of the one on the Pi - if anyone can point me to a source, that will be very helpful. Removing the old one without damaging the board will be tricky, but if all else fails and I can find a replacement I'll give it a go.

The only other thing I've thought of is to glue a micro-sd adapter permanently in place and use micro-sd cards for the operating system.

If anyone has any other ideas, or knows where I can get a compatible replacement card holder, or has experienced a similar problem, your input would be much appreciated.

[Joe Schmoe]

Why isn't that a long-term solution?

It looks cute - and quite in line with the DIY spirit of the Pi.

[Jim JKla]

If you were to take a micro sd adapter card and glue that into place (hold it with your clamp till the glue sets) you could then use micro SD cards in place of SD cards.

As you suggested I am using an 8g micro in an adapter for one of my images and I used a 32 gig till my partner pinched it back for her MP3 Player

If you get the glue right you could remove the combo at a later date to replace it.

[exartemarte]

Why isn't that a long-term solution?

It looks cute - and quite in line with the DIY spirit of the Pi.

I need the clamp.

(Also, it won't fit back into its neat little ModMyPi case and it's not particularly stable or robust - positioning and clamping the card is quite tricky, and whenever it gets knocked it has to be done again. And rebooted.)

[exartemarte]

If you were to take a micro sd adapter card and glue that into place (hold it with your clamp till the glue sets) you could then use micro SD cards in place of SD cards.

That's my favourite solution so far. I don't have either a micro-sd or an adapter, but they're easy enough to find.

[..] and I used a 32 gig till my partner pinched it back for her MP3 Player

Very distorted sense of priorities ...

[Jim JKla]

Its ok I have a micro 8g a micro 2g three 4g a 2g a 1g and a 256meg thats about to become a minimal Sd & Pendrive combo experiment.

The 32 was hers to start with.

There's 2 x 2g in the cameras as well (she just reminded me).

[p4trykx]

I e-mailed RS Components if they can send me a replacement socket. But they did not have replacement. I said that the broken socket was my fault because I dropped it on the floor. Eventually they sent me a whole new device.
As for glue I managed to glue it with 2 component epoxy (Poxipol). I think it's good do scratch it a little. The size o the gap for SD card is very crucial. Card should fit tightly. You can also bend the metal leads a little.

Here is work in progress. There should be a lot of glue. If there is just thin layer it's not rigid enough.
http://ubuntuone.com/6esomnzLffmtV6GmZRVRAc
http://ubuntuone.com/0fpin8TnAu4zUNmtVVvx3a

The other side was more damaged. So I grind the plastic a little to make place for the glue and attached some piece of plastic.

[Jim JKla]

It never harms to ask.

[exartemarte]

This is my NAS server - the clamp is holding the SD card in place because the plastic card holder is broken.

Supergluing a micro-sd carrier in place worked for about a day, then it gave up the ghost and I haven't been able to coax it back into life since: the fit of the sd card does seem to be super-critical.

With nothing to lose, I decided to have a go at replacing the carrier and I've now got as far as removing the old one. Unsoldering all the connections simultaneously was never going to be practicable, but with a Dremel cutting disc I was able to cut through the metal contacts on the carrier without touching the board.


The SD connectors cut through with a Dremel

With the side lugs unsoldered, the carrier could lifted away and the solder pads cleaned up with all the remaining bits of metal removed one at a time.


Ready to solder in a new carrier

Soldering in a new carrier shouldn't be too difficult (I speak as one who's constructed a Gertboard...), but so far I haven't found one to fit. There are plenty about which would be electrically compatible, but if it doesn't fit mechanically then the only way to secure a new carrier would be to fix it with epoxy. That would be (a) a bodge - which I could live with, but (b) might not work since it would be bonding not to the board but to the (glossy) protective coating. Vias are visible through the varnish, so roughing it up with sandpaper is probably not a good idea.

[exartemarte]

This is my NAS server - the clamp is holding the SD card in place because the plastic card holder is broken.

Supergluing a micro-sd carrier in place worked for about a day, then it gave up the ghost and I haven't been able to coax it back into life since: the fit of the sd card does seem to be super-critical.

Eventually I settled for this Wurth Elektronik half-size holder (Farnell 2081361):


Replacement cardholder in place

Inevitably it's a bit of a botch job. I gave up searching for an adhesive that would bond to both hard plastic and the varnish on the Pi and used hot glue - on the basis that I could always dunk it in hot water if I needed to get it off again. Hot glue has its own problems, such as remaining workable for about a millisecond when it's spread thinly and being too bulky if it's not. This meant that metal surfaces needing to be soldered weren't quite in mechanical contact, but they were close enough.

The data lines match up. The card-detect and write-protect switches don't and have been left unconnected. On the PCB, the pads where the card-detect should be are shorted together.


Broken Pi lives again!

It's now back in its box behind my monitor with its hard drive and doing duty as NAS server once more.

[hoettienouw]

Looks nice, but why not a micro sd reader ?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Shrink- ... Card-Slot/

[Jim JKla]

His SD cards would not fit

[exartemarte]

Looks nice, but why not a micro sd reader ?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Shrink- ... Card-Slot/

His SD cards would not fit

Jim JKla hits the nail on the head.

I didn't discover that instructable until a few days ago. I like the approach, but since I'd successfully removed the old one a new SD carrier was the preferred solution. I have three Pi's and it's obviously convenient if they all use the same sort of card. Wiring in a micro-sd reader was my fallback solution.

[Jim JKla]

It just proves the glib answer can sometimes be right.

[hoettienouw]

Well, that does makes sense..
Might try the micro sd one myself

[exartemarte]

Well, that does makes sense..
Might try the micro sd one myself

Good luck! I'll be interested to hear how you get on.

[alexeames]

I glued a bit of old credit card over mine, but I like the idea of installing a metal SD card slot. As a fellow Gertboard assembler, this no longer holds fear for me.

Gorilla glue sticks to this plastic.

Full repair details here...

http://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-fix-a-broke ... spberry-pi

[exartemarte]

I hope that makes a permanent repair. I didn't know that Gorilla glue bonds to plastic - I've only used it for repairing chairs - but I've filed that snippet away for future reference.

Since the above posts I've had to repair another. I found a supplier on eBay (Farnell has a £20 minimum order for credit cards).

[alexeames]

I hope that makes a permanent repair. I didn't know that Gorilla glue bonds to plastic - I've only used it for repairing chairs - but I've filed that snippet away for future reference.

Since the above posts I've had to repair another. I found a supplier on eBay (Farnell has a £20 minimum order for credit cards).

It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I like the idea of a metal SD card slot. I hope that one day the RPF will add one when the price of components falls - and they aren't tempted to add useless extras like more RAM (that's a joke, before I get pasted for writing that).

Gorilla glue was designed as a waterproof glue for boat building. It's polyurethane - very similar to building foam. Sticks to pretty much everything. Wood, metal, ceramics, plastics. But it will eventually peel if the plastics are too smooth, hence all the scoring on my photos in the above link. It can also be used to fill small gaps if you wipe the seam with a damp rag or moisten the joint before application.

[p4trykx]

I decided to replace the connector. I got a metal half size one. Unfortunately it does not have the exact size of the original but it close enough.
First a quick tutorial about desoldering. I think all the soldered in Raspi is lead less so it has higher melting temperature and generally is harder to use then 'standard one'. If you want to desolder few points at the same time it's hard. So the easiest solution is to apply some PB solder to existing solder points so there is a surplus of it. This way the colling before it becomes solid again is a little longer. This is enough to melt one side and move the soldering iron to the next point and maintain all the points liquid.
Also soldering flux comes in handy.
I made it in 2 steps.
Put the sharp knife under the socket and melt/add solder at the edge of the board. The apply little pressure on the knife. Move by small steps changing the sides.



Then go to the card contacts. Apply solder generously on all pads. The solder can even join near pads.Then move the soldering iron across all of them and at the same time apply pressure with the knife. As before do it in small steps.

When the socket is removed you can easly collect the ecess solder and wipe it in wet sponge.


As the new socket does not have the presence pins you have to bridge those pins together.On my images the are on the right next to GPIO header. The R/W pins AFIK are not connected.
And almost done

[exartemarte]

Congratulations on managing to desolder the original connector. That is quite a tricky thing to achieve without lifting any of the lands off the board, and not something I would advise the inexperienced to attempt.

It's because I know from experience how easy it to damage a pcb while unsoldering that I chose to cut through all the connectors at the business end of the connector first (as shown above), using a Dremel cutting disc, so that I could lift the connector away and unsolder the the metal pins one at a time.

[p4trykx]

If you add a lot of PB solder it comes off easily. Solder stays 'liquid' for some time. I even desoldered some RAM chips with this method. But you are right if you are not gentle or heat it too much you can rip the pads.
There are even some some special desoldering alloys which have very low melting point.

[techpaul]

If you add a lot of PB solder it comes off easily. Solder stays 'liquid' for some time. I even desoldered some RAM chips with this method. But you are right if you are not gentle or heat it too much you can rip the pads.
There are even some some special desoldering alloys which have very low melting point.

One of the easiest to get hold of and price wise for occassional surface mount repairs is ChipQuick (link) have in past got from CPC and others. Some of their simpler SMD kits are only around a tenner.

[techpaul]

Well I got a bunch of Coinnectors that are right size and connection from Toby Electronics, and will be replacing the SD connector on one of my Pis this afternoon, but then again I have surface mount rework tools.

[lak]

try this
SD Card socket Toby Electronics
412D02F-09PC003