Introduction: USB Hack

By WILLPOWER STUDIOS
About: WILLPOWER is a Solar/Cypherpunk AudioVisual Artist, Performer & Spiritual Creative Technologist using Light, Sound and other Invisible Forces to transcend the Matrix.

I was inspired to do the Plusea instructable: USB Coil Cable, which you can view here:

https://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Coil-Cable/

It was my first instructable project.

I'm using this platform to learn through the projects that creators share.

Thank you Plusea !

I find that hacking your own USB Cable, you get an understanding of how power and data flow.

I purchased the coil cable from the 99c Store as it was suggested and ordered an USB to power my Arduino Uno, which I ordered on Amazon.

Step 1:

Materials:

1. USB Cable

2. Coil Cable

3. Shrink Tubing

Tools:

1. Wire Cutters

2. Wire Strippers

3. Soldering Iron

4. Solder

5. Lighter

Step 2: Cutting / Stripping

1. Cut the ends of both cables by 3-5 cm

2. Strip them by 2-3 cm

3. Visualize the final result wanted to choose the amount of cable to cut & strip

4. Twist the cables, as they are fine and easily damaged.

Step 3: Solder

01. Solder each stripped wire to solidify them

02. Cut and place shrink tubes on the end of one of the sides of each cable before soldering them together

02. Solder the cables together by matching their colors:

- Red > positive

- Black > negative

- white > data

- green > data

Step 4: Shrink Tubing

Apply heat with flame under and around tube for a few seconds to shrink it to the shape of the wiring.

Step 5: Testing

I plugged my Arduino Uno and ran the blink example file to test the new cable by placing the LED positive on 13 and its negative into ground.

It's nice to have a short cable when working with Arduino, versus the really long ones, which can make the workflow awkward.

Feel free to share thoughts and this instructable.

All best.