When utilizing an SD card in your projects, you would generally buy an SD card slot to wire in. Sometimes, you just don’t plan that far ahead, or maybe you just want to play with an SD a little bit to see what you think. [Kroden] shows us how to make a fairly simple and cheap SD card dock. The result is actually pretty impressive looking. He has simply bent some header pins and soldered them together to make a simple SD slot. It can even be adapted to a horizontal layout for more permanent use.
Color me impressed.
I was just on instructables and was going to suggest this link…..damn. Great project. I think I’ll be going with the right angle version.
something like a dot of velcro hook and loop on the horizontal version and thats as good as a real connector.
Simple, cheap, and I would vote elegant.
Interesting idea, but…
Wouldn’t it be easier to start from a 14 way IDC header (2 rows of 7 pins), cut off the short side of one row and bend the the long side of the other row.
At least that way you can’t damage the SDCard the by connecting it the wrong way around.
I use micro sd cards, so I bought a cheap 5 pack of micro sd to sd card converters, and soldered header pins directly to the converter. Works great
Very elegant…
Beats the Floppy connector trick…
Bough a bunch of Flash to USB adapters and unsoldered the SD socket and Micro USB B connectors…
Wow instructables has really gone to shit.
Or you can sample real connectors from tyco/molex for free…
I could see a whole new revolution of miniaturised cartridge gaming with that.
@razorconcepts That’s a far better idea. Most MicroSD cards come with adaptors, anyway, so if you have some cards, you’re bound to have spare adaptors to waste.
This is really impressive! I know engineering majors in college who couldn’t pull this off, and that’s not because they’re incompetent. Kudos to Kroden for a job well done, how long did it take you to build that and what are you using it for?
Hey guys, glad you liked it. Thanks for the post btw. I spent a few days trying to figure out how to connect an SD card for a prototype project I have, and noticed the header pins were the same spacing as the SD contacts. The actual fabrication took about 30 minutes. I’m using it for an accelerometer datalogger on the arduino right now, who know what in the future.
@RazorConcepts
I’ve tried that with both microsd adaptors and minisd adaptors. Most don’t like any sort of heat and when you start soldering to the contact it melts through adaptor. Unless you can get adaptors not made out of shit plastic it’s pretty hard to pull off.
brilliant.
very cool idea. kudos!!
not too long ago I came across an old gps unit, but did not have the cable for making a serial connection to a pc, so I roughed out the distance between holes, then bent up paperclips and pushed them through a piece of cardboard and secured things with electrical tape – it wasn’t pretty, but absolutely worked.
@razorconcepts — Great idea – thanks!
@razorconcepts that is a fantasitic idea.
@cantido try not to press so hard whilst soldering?
Lol
@Simbo
So you don’t have gravity where you live? If the plastic melts the contact sinks into it. How about you go and try it before being a smartass?
Very cool idea.
A quick connection can also be achieved with a piece of an ISA connector (you can easily get them from old mobos).
Nice work and some interesting alternate ideas too!
You could use this method in your prototype while you locate some samples for the finished product.
I really like the idea of using some velcro in addition to this to physically secure the card.
-in a quick-and-dirty one-off that would be pretty ideal.
the isa connector idea is tops because Those contacts are already designed to slide onto other contacts, so wear on the cards contacts could be reduced.
@simbo
pushing on the contacts has little to do with it. the heat alone melts the plastic and the contacts go to heck. try it sometime and you’ll see what [cantido] is talking about.
The idea is not really new…
Ulrich Radig used that in his ATMEGA32 Webserver long ago!
http://www.mikrocontroller.com/images/isa_ctrl2.jpg
But still a great workaround.
Btw: I like the angled pin-tops ;-)
@RazorConcepts
That’s what I did probably a year and a half ago when I wanted to make a homemade SD Gecko for my wii. I didn’t have a real SD card holder, but I had lots of adaptors and small capacity SD-Micro cards. It worked like a charm and would not hesitate to do it again if I found the need.
use some BiPbSn 100C alloy, that works well and doesen’t melt the pins or case.
Other methods include:- harvesting a spare connector strip from a dead laptop’s PC card slot, soldering to veroboard and bending the pins (works well for microSD),
using those rubber contact strips and connector from a suitable cheap calculator (also works well for Samsung OLED panels).
@conundrum
Or just buy a cheap SD breakout board from china, there’s one that has both SD and microSD slots and level converters for ~$10.
Hello!
I’m not through all of the site but so far it is an interesting idea.
Of course I was also surprised to see a Memsic family member MEMS chip also sited there.
Here is one using the edge connector from an old floppy drive lead:
http://uanr.com/sdfloppy/
Wouldn’t just buying a reader be less expensive.. unless you just happen to have all the things laying around, you’d have to go out and buy things just to make it. Not saying it’s not a cool idea, because it is, it’s awesome..
But I paid 2 dollars for my SD card reader, with free shipping… it actually reads 4 different types of data cards.