Solder USB-cable to Arduino UNO (clone)

It saves some space in a case and sometimes it is easier to solder a cable to an Arduino than to plug and unplug it every time. Once tested it is the one plug less to worry about. - So let's see how it works.

Step 1: Peel Your USB-Cable

To start remove a board with of your cables outer insulation and pre apply some solder to every of wires.

Step 2: Add Stress Relief

To avoid an early tear-out of the cable, we wrap the cable through one of the mouting holes (which will not be available any more for screws, but who cares ;-)

Step 3: Sodler the Wire to the USB-Connector Pins

Now we can solder the pins of the USB-Cable to the bottom of the Arduino. Be sure to follow exactly the same scheme:

White -- Green

Red -- Black

Step 4: Test It

Before we finish the build, just test if you can upload the "blink" sketch as usually.

Step 5: Add Some Magic Isolations (aka Hot Glue)

To add some more stress resistance, add a big blob of hot glue.

Comments

[ShaharE1]

Do you have some sample code for usage with this cable to read data? or maybe micro-usb to read from phone?

Thanks

[CallumW8]

I have just setup mine. the soldering is widely and it does not look great but i made it with old wires from around the house. and it works great. I haven't tested how robust it is yet but i found that putting some epoxy over the connectors made them stay apart the hot glue is not really needed. but it's good for support.

Thanks for the instructable!

[Juleian_Rees_1985]

Can anyone give me some advice on which is the best soldering iron to use for this project?

This is what I am looking at right now…

[Brinith]

The ultimate laziness project, but yeah its cool nevertheless. Now i want to make a dock for the arduino instead now, so all I have to do is plop it down and it'll be connected.

[ochâtelain]

No problem to make a docking station - the solution is call "pogo pins" ;-)

[Neel Dhebar]

You can't just 'plop down an Arduino'; It's not an iPhone. To start with you might have breadboards and fragile components connected and a dock would kind of be overkill. But if you make a working permanent project out of it, why not? It could be a Music System, a Phone or even a Tablet. The possibilities are endless!

Nevertheless, I'll post an Instructable once I make one of my own.

[Digital Electronics Circuits Lab]

cool

[MaterialBall]

You could also try to solder a standard micro-USB female connector in place of the USB connector, so you can use any phone data cable