Flashdrive in Audio-Casette

This afternoon I went curious how many tape actually is wrapped up in an audio casette, it's a lot, and during the process of cleaning the mess I destroyed the casing of my old 128 Meg memory stick.

So I was left over with a USB Flashdrive without any casing and an empty audiocasette, I didn't get rid of either, because I noticed the PCB fits in the old casette casing. I modified the casette a bit, and snuggled in my flashdrive. Having the thing in my pocket for about 15 minutes was a pain, because the USB plug poked into my leg. Also I thought it was quite sad the casette didn't fit in it's original case.

I went for a redo, and now, turning the wheel next to the B will make the USB plug pop out, and in again, like a U3 cruzer, but different.

I want to tell you in this instructable how to do what I done. I'll try supply you with some pictures, but at the moment of making the USB-Casette I didn't think of writing an instructable about it.

Here's a little vid of the end product:

Step 1 What we need

1. A spare audio-casette
2. A screwdriver
3. Some really thick spungy tape of which I don't know the name. I'll give a description at the bottom, you might have it lying around. (I'll name it borrehtape for now.)
4. A USB Flashdrive.
5. A staple. No gun. Just one staple.

So, the tape I'm talking about, it's about 1 cm wide and 0,5 cm high. It's sorta spungy and I often use it to protect big yet vulnerable electronic parts such as microcontrollers, or in this case, flash memory. If you know what I'm talking about please comment, you'll make me happy.

Comments

[ikeike40]

HI

[tehborreh]

Hi indeed.

[Pretty Idiot Productions]

Nice... I built one!

[tehborreh]

Cool. Hey I should make 'nother random instructable. I haven't stopped building random apparati.

[carlos-felo]

Wow! It's Great and Funny!

[samuraiclinton]

Wouldn't it be cooler if this was a DIY flash MP3 player that works with a cassette dock.

[tehborreh]

Been fantasizing about that too. I still want to build my old PC into an even older Cassette deck, with an usb-port in the tape holder thingy.

[tehborreh]

Ohmy. Dutch beer company Heineken is giving away miniatures which work suspiciously similar to the two side-extending USB flash drives on instructables. What the-

[team_nes_1986]

Check mine out. I didn't follow your plans, because my thumb drive board was too big for the wheel to move. You used a SanDisk Cruzer, which was perfect. But mine is a Sony MicroVault USB. But, without further ado, here it is:

[team_nes_1986]

As you can see, I bored a tiny hole using an awl to let me see the status of the thumb drive.

[acidrain1]

very well done. the only problem i see would be when you plug it in you would need to be holding the reel so it woudnt just slide back in the casing unless you figured out a way to prevent that already. Also,from my own experience with flash drives and other usb periphs, sometimes it is hard to fit even the small ones into the small usb area most comps and laptops have. So size may be a factor to others trying this mod. otherwise very well done and very creative.

[tehborreh]

Well, thanks, I'm not creative that often, so ye.. But I have to admit, I experienced that problem, but I've found out two solutions for now: 1. Hold the wheel with your finger while plugging in, 2. Use a short USB extension cable. Thanks a lot! I'm going to add this to the instructable.

[acidrain1]

excellent solution using the extension.

[Mr. Fishy]

Woehee like it! One thing about the originality, the sliding-action has already been done in another instructable, here, but this mechanism (turn-sliding-action-thing) is much neater than a big hole in the side of the casette.

[tehborreh]

I've made this thing without any research done on Flashdrive cassettes - I discovered about it when I already placed this instructable. It's still original, but it's been done before .