MicroSD Card Mod = Compact R-Pi

[frank26080115]

The SD card sticking out is sort of annoying, so I soldered a microSD card adapter directly underneath the R-Pi.




The modification is very simple, you don't even have to care about the purpose of the pins, just line up each contact on the holder to the matching contact on the adapter and solder them together using a wire. Remember to short out the "card detect" pins.







I am using 30 gauge Kynar coated wire, plenty of flux, flux core solder, desoldering braid (in case you screw up).

The wire lengths are short enough to not cause problems. The adapter is still very thin and do not add to the overall thickness of the R-Pi at all. Full sized SD cards will still work after this modification.

[pygmy_giant]

impressed but too scared to try

[amarjits]

Hi,

were you able to BOOT from microSD card ?

I could not boot from microSD and...on all the forums..its mentioned that we cannot use a microSD (with Adapter) to boot...

[mdave]

Nice mod!
I will add an µSD-card holder to my raspi in the near future.

@amarjits
I use an unknown 2GB micro-SD card (came with my Motorola Defy) with an Transcend adapter. Works fine for me.

[frank26080115]

It boots from the microSD card. My card is a Adata 16 GB class 10 microSD card. Absolutely no issues.

[godFather89]

I also have a micro SD adapter (was thinking at some point to do something like this) and a card (2GB, no class, not sure of the brand) that did not work with debian squeeze. Just tested it yesterday with the latest OpenElec build and it works fine now.

[scorp]

Wow, so simple. Genius. Thanks for the idea

[mikerr]

Nice hack

Another way is to use an old RS-MMC card, see here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 45&t=10266

[rew]

were you able to BOOT from microSD card ?

I can boot from MicroSD. It's a 4Gb sandisk class 2.

I've just "upgraded" that to a 8Gb class 10 SD card, just for testing. (I use only 6.3Mb of the 8Gb card).

[amarjits]

thanks guys...it worked.

i m a happy bird

[frank26080115]

I got rid of the ugly adapter and added in a proper microSD card holder. It's held in place using double sided sticky tape, which also acts as an insulator. Becareful when doing this because full sized SD cards has two ground pins while the micro sized SD card only has one, don't mix up the signals. Also, this time the card detect switch is wired properly. The holder I used is a Molex brand 502702-0891.






It boots just fine using both full sized and micro sized cards. The main concern was that the asymmetrical wire lengths might cause skew, but apparently at the operating frequency, the effects are negligible.

[Dilligaf]

Now if only you could get both slots to work at the same time