4Gb Steampunk USB Flash Drive

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the making process, but I will try to explain the process of creating this USB flash drive. Here it goes:

1. Get a connection like the one in fig. 1 . The one in the picture is bigger than the one I ussed but the principe is the same. You got to have a piece (A) that has a thread on the outside on one end, and at the other you can fit inside a copper pipe with a diameter of 15 mm. The other piece (B) must have a thread on the inside at one end and at the other end you can also fit a copper pipe with a diameter of 15 mm (in the picture it has a thread but it should be like the left side of the  "A"  piece)

2. Take a file and file down the hexagonal shape on both pieces until they are round .

3. Take a copper pipe with the diameter of 18 mm, and cut it to the desired lenght.

4. Take a copper end piece like the one in fig. 2. The diameter of this piece should be the same as the diameter of the copper pipe ( it must fit over a 15 mm pipe). Drill a hole in it so that you can insert a LED (fig. 3) . I used a big transparent LED which I cut in half because I only needed the top dome shaped part. Take a round file and an make a chanel like the one in fig. 4


5. Make a hole in the copper pipe so that you can insert the end piece.

6. Make a wire ornament around the copper ending so that you will cover all the empty spaces between the copper pipe and the copper ending. Solder it all together. Be carefull how deep you push the end piece into the copper pipe, you must have room for the flash drive. (fig. 5)

7. Make 3 copper discs. One for the back end, one for the cap an one for the front side, through witch the USB male adapter will pass. For this take a piece of copper pipe an cut it on its lenght. Widen the cut with a screwdriver or what you cand find and works for you. Put it on a flat surface and hit it with a hammer until you obtain a copper sheet. Mark 3 discs and cut them out with a chisel. Copper is a soft material, you will have no problems doing this. When doing this you don't have to cut out the exact form. Cut a bigger piece and give it the final form with a file.

8. Take one of the three discs and make a hole so that your USB plug fits through. You can do this in two ways: 1) make a hole in the center of the disc big enough for you to insert a small file but not bigger than the thickness of the USB plug. Use the file to give it its shape. 2) Cut the disc in two an use a file to make the shape of the hole.

9. Solder one disc to the cap (B).

10. Solder the disc with the rectangular hole (or the two pieces if you have chosen the second variant) to the front (A) of the USB. Make sure the USB plug can pass through.

11. Solder the „A” part to the copper pipe. Make sure you align correctly the LED with the USB plug.

12. Open your Flash drive and cover the circuit with a thin layer of silicon. I did this to protect it from heat and to make it waterproof.

13.The light...if your flash drive has a LED and you can make it fit under the big LED then it's great. My flash drive had a SMD LED on the front side...I couldn't do that. So my solution was to take a high intensity red light LED an power it from the USB plug. The USB uses 4 pins. The two in the middle are for sending and receiveing data and the two on the sides are 5V power suply (+ and - ). Do not connect the LED directly to the USB power suply because it will heat up and burn. Use a resistor when conecting it. I don't remember the exact value of my rezistor but you can experiment with different values and see what happens.

14. Make the copper wire ornaments. The small pieces of brass that I have used on the wire ends are taken from guitar strings.

15. Insert the flash drive into the copper pipe from the back end. Put some more silicone inside the pipe so that it will fix everything in place.

17. Solder the remaining disc to the back side and put an ornament on if you want.

16. Insert the transparent LED dome in the hole and carefully glue it in place.

17.The END.