Drew Stroud

Repairing a broken thumb drive. This shows the finished solder joints and the thumb drive powered on.

Overview of thumb drive repair. The main chip was removed from the original housing and secured to a firm surface. An old USB to micro cable was stripped so I could solder the new wires to the thumb drive.

Despite the sensitive soldering required, my files are safe and sound! The wires were first tinned with solder, then the board was cleaned with rubbing alcohol before carefully soldering each wire to the proper location. Wiring diagrams are available online. Once soldered, the USB was plugged into a computer and the files were recovered.

DIY Electric Bike Conversion. I took my mountain bike and added a Bafang electric motor, controls, and a Li-Ion battery pack.

Close up of the motor. The motor replaces the bottom bracket and torques up against the frame. To prevent the motor from torquing up into the frame, the small gap that was present was filled with epoxy putty and the motor was tightend against it.