Cheapest 6 in 1 Card Reader Ever

by divxnz

20K3722

Intro: Cheapest 6 in 1 Card Reader Ever

A simple mod of the ECS 6 in 1 internal card reader makes it the cheapest external card reader i have ever found...

Usually this internal card reader only works with ECS motherboards but the hacked drivers (included later in the instructable) let it work with any motherboard...!

STEP 1: Aquire Parts

The ECS Internal USB 6 in 1 card reader can be bought for next to nothing, alot of shops almost give them away as they are made to work with only ECS motherboards..

I picked mine up from PB Tech in Hamilton, New Zealand for only NZ$5.60 PBTech in NZ... a quick search on google will find many others from as low as US$0.99 on Ebay...

Also required is a male USB plug on some cable... the $2 shop provided this for me plus i get a spare female USB socket for free (the other end of a 1.5m USB extension cable)

STEP 2: Open the Card Reader

Remove the 2 small phillips head screws on the underside of the card reader.

The case then splits in two, carefully remove the board from the casing with the faceplate still attached. You can now disconnect the USB wires from the board as there is a nice little plug.

Now cut and strip the wires at about 40mm from the plug (card reader end).

Now take your USB extension cable and lop off the male plug (leave at least 200mm or so of cable but its up to you of course)... now strip those wires....

STEP 3: Connect Wires

Now get out your trusty soldering iron and connect up the wires... basically just match red to red, green to green, black to black and white to white....

You dont have to solder if you dont want want too... twisting wires is much cheaper and nastier..!!

Now wrap the connections up individually with insulation tape and then wrap those all together to make it all as compact as possible.

Now make a knot in the USB cable close to the insulation tape bundle.

STEP 4: Reassemble

Now time to put it all back together... Mount the board back in the plastic case and snake the wire with the knot in the corner as shown.. this tends to jam the cable in which will allow for a robust exiting cable.

Now fit the base back on and reinstall the screws....

STEP 5: Finished

Thats it... you're done... now plug it into your PC and install the hacked drivers which are provided below...

This reader performs like 4 separate drives in windows explorer... excellent and cheap..!!

24 Comments

The1PublicEnemy 13 years ago

i took mine apart and guess what? it uses a standard mini usb cable haha

diyman 16 years ago

i was trying to do this but th one i have is from an emachines computer, everything was going good until th wire connections part. this on has 2red, 2black, 2green, 2white wires. my usb cable had only 1of each color. so i don't know what to do help me out. thx diyman

divxnz 16 years ago

What was th original connection? the one you cut off? it has to to be USB in the first placed for this hack to work... sounds like it had 2 internal USB connections..

uncle_al_0 15 years ago

An internal USB header has provisions for 2 USB ports, usually 9 pins. 2 power, 4 data, 2 negative, and 1 ground. For diyman now, does the card reader you have also have a USB port that you can plug into on the front? If yes then that's why it has the 8 wires, just connect the each pair of wires from the reader to the corresponding color on the USB cable, just dont use the usb port and card reader at the same time as it may cause some problems.

LetsExplodeSomething 14 years ago

i have one just like diyman and yes it has usb on the front. came out of emachines

uncle_al_0 14 years ago

Are you wanting to do this and don't know how, or what are you asking?

uncle_al_0 14 years ago

Yes, basically. You solder the 2 wires of each color from the card reader to the same colors on the usb cable your using, that way you don't have to figure out which wire is for either the usb port on the front or for the card reader. Just don't use the card reader and the usb port on the front at the same time or there may be some problems.

i am me 16 years ago

omg 1 made a long comment then and it messed up... any way, i put about getting one and i got 3 differant ones instead and i hacked it to be a 16 in 1 card reader and used that software to make it work.

junits15 15 years ago

cool where did you get the software?

The magical duct tape kid 16 years ago

By the way, just search for an internal card reader on Ebay and you can pick up a 7 in 1 card reader for under ten bucks!

diyman 16 years ago

awesome man. i'm gonna do this ASAP. but 1 ? though.
will the medea card reader inside of the emachines work.
mine looks something like this
Emachines Media Card Reader

SacTownSue 16 years ago

Clever! I was just looking at the USB drive encased in Legos. Put the two together.

spiffyrodent 17 years ago

I built one and it works great on my ubuntu pc.

tmadore 17 years ago

Cool this media card reader came with my computer but I could never figure out what brand it was or how to get it to work. thanks
More Comments