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Step 4Soldering
Desolder LED off the USB hub's board making sure to take note of the orientation of the LED.
Solder it to two wires and heat shrink around the joins
Re attached the the wires to where you have just removed the LED on the board
Now the the bit I found fiddly. To make a stealth drive we need to attach it to one of the ports. I chose the one on the far right. I still want the appearance of a working port so I don't want to desolder it nor do I want to block it from the front for the same reason.
My solution is to cut the 5V power inside the socket.
First of all you have to locate the correct pin, you don't want to cut the wrong one anywhere in this project.
Cut 5v lead inside the unused (fake) port with a Dremel being careful of the surrounding parts.
Now that port can not get power.
On the bottom of the board you need to solder wires onto the four contacts and one onto the shield where the 'fake' port is located. You are effectively attaching you hidden drive to the point before the 5 volts has been cut. Four of those wires will be going directly to the USB drive and one to the reed switch for you hidden drives (5v line).
Note: This was an old flash drive so decided to solder it directly to the wires and save myself a connector. If you want the drive to be removable in the future for replacement or upgrade I strongly advise you add a USB connector to this circuit as it will be very awkward to change the drive at a later date otherwise.
The price of small USB flash drives at rock bottom and lots of people even giving them away I didn't feel it necessary but this is something to consider.
Take your chosen, latching switch and attach a wire to each terminal
Tin the terminals and solder the wires (some switches have screw terminals).
Desolder the +5v coming into the hub from outside the pc, I used a multi meter attached to the pin I knew was 5v on the socket then touched the soldered ends of the wire on the board until I the beep.
Solder one wire from the switch onto the hub and the other to the desolder 5v wire from the board.
Now the testing. Before mounting all this inside I will build and test it separately. Some of your problems may include LED in the wrong way, loose connection, missing. Some of the wires were weak (which was one of my problems) so I as soon as it has been fully tested it secure the joins with a little glue with the trusty glue gun. Place some insulation tape to the bottom of the hub and the flash drive boards to stop any short circuits.
Solder it to two wires and heat shrink around the joins
Re attached the the wires to where you have just removed the LED on the board
Now the the bit I found fiddly. To make a stealth drive we need to attach it to one of the ports. I chose the one on the far right. I still want the appearance of a working port so I don't want to desolder it nor do I want to block it from the front for the same reason.
My solution is to cut the 5V power inside the socket.
First of all you have to locate the correct pin, you don't want to cut the wrong one anywhere in this project.
Cut 5v lead inside the unused (fake) port with a Dremel being careful of the surrounding parts.
Now that port can not get power.
On the bottom of the board you need to solder wires onto the four contacts and one onto the shield where the 'fake' port is located. You are effectively attaching you hidden drive to the point before the 5 volts has been cut. Four of those wires will be going directly to the USB drive and one to the reed switch for you hidden drives (5v line).
Note: This was an old flash drive so decided to solder it directly to the wires and save myself a connector. If you want the drive to be removable in the future for replacement or upgrade I strongly advise you add a USB connector to this circuit as it will be very awkward to change the drive at a later date otherwise.
The price of small USB flash drives at rock bottom and lots of people even giving them away I didn't feel it necessary but this is something to consider.
Take your chosen, latching switch and attach a wire to each terminal
Tin the terminals and solder the wires (some switches have screw terminals).
Desolder the +5v coming into the hub from outside the pc, I used a multi meter attached to the pin I knew was 5v on the socket then touched the soldered ends of the wire on the board until I the beep.
Solder one wire from the switch onto the hub and the other to the desolder 5v wire from the board.
Now the testing. Before mounting all this inside I will build and test it separately. Some of your problems may include LED in the wrong way, loose connection, missing. Some of the wires were weak (which was one of my problems) so I as soon as it has been fully tested it secure the joins with a little glue with the trusty glue gun. Place some insulation tape to the bottom of the hub and the flash drive boards to stop any short circuits.
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