Raspberry Pi – Chopped SD-Card adapter for a smaller form factor

This is just a small hack inspired by a post I read the Raspberry Pi forum.

A few weeks ago I bought a combined Micro-SD Card and USB-Adapter on eBay (from China).

SD-Card Adapter

 

I opened it and cut off  the USB-Adapter part as I am only interested in the SD-Card part of the adapter.

SD-Card Adapter w/ USB part chopped off

The result may not be the visually most convincing hack but it works perfect and reduces the chance of accidently pulling out the SD-Card.

SD-Card Adapter Hack

7 thoughts on “Raspberry Pi – Chopped SD-Card adapter for a smaller form factor

  1. How short is that adapter exactly? I could use adapter that fits in the sd card slot in laptop, but won’t stick out. The ones made for macbooks are too long.

  2. I highly recommend you do NOT do this. I had once tried doing this and toasted two microSD cards in the process.

    The problem is that you cut through an IC chip (which is not shown in the photos as it is on the other side). when you cut through the thing, you cause it to short circuit. This actually happened to me.

    There are other, better options on the market for pretty cheap. You can get a cheap 21 mm long adapters for $6.00 on amazon or really short 14 mm adapters from [URL omitted] for $15.

    doing this method to save $3.00 is not worth the effort and certainly not worth the risk.

    • Well, obviously you should make sure to not cut through any ICs. In the shown case there are only traces where I
      have cut. (There is an IC on the bottom but it’s located about where the ‘MicroSD’ text is, so nowhere near the cutting edge.) It’s best to cut the case and the PCB separatedly, as I had done, just to be sure.

      Since the post was written several cheap (below 10.00 $/€) solutions appeared. So to second Christopher: it might not be worth anymore. — Kai

    • Kai, where did you get the adapter that you cut?

      Christopher Kramer, what adapters so you see on Amazon? Are they like the ones to above (http://www.adafruit.com/products/966) where the MicroSD card sits on top of the adapter? Those are too thick to fit in a laptop, do you see something as thin as the solution above? Adafruit has a thin solution (http://www.adafruit.com/products/1763 but they want $6 plus $9 shipping, it would be better if I can get them from Amazon.

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