[stompyonos] bricked his Samsung Captivate. Not wanting to be without a phone for a while, he researched a fix online and found shorting a pair of pins on the USB port would put the phone into download mode, saving his phone. The only problem for this plan is [stompy] didn’t have any resistors on hand. Instead, he came up with a wonderful MacGyverism using a piece of paper, a bit of graphite, and a pair of paper clips.
The process of unbricking a Captivate requires a 300 or 330 kΩ resistor across pins 4 and 5 of the mini USB port. This can be done with a few resistors, but [stompy] only had a multimeter lying around. After scribbling a good bit of pencil lead on a piece of paper, he attached two paper clips to make a variable resistor, dialed it in to about 300 kΩ, and cut up an old Nokia charger for its USB plug.
Not bad for a very easy fix that didn’t cost [stompyonos] a dime, and certainly better than a $500 paperweight.