Turn Your Old MP3 Player to Custom USB Flash Drive

As a large number of media small devices come to our vision, such as Smartphone, tablet, game players etc, people stop using their MP3 player and left it at the bottom of box. And then, they forget about they still have it. How to make our MP3 player more useful? Sometime, we can use it as a USB flash drive. But don’t forget we still need bring a USB cable if we want to transfer your data to a computer. USB flash drive is more easy to carry.

Have you thrown your broken MP3 player? Sometimes the MP3 player was just broke the screen or player got damaged and its repair cost is more expensive as much as its value. At this situation, most of us just left it in dustbin. Actually, it is so pity if we just throw it away without recycle, and still it’s very bad for environment.

Here we have a good way to use MP3 player more practical. Just turn a MP3 Player to a custom USB flash drive by yourself which is a good idea if you have a basic welding technique. And the new custom USB flash drive still can be sent to friend as a special gift.

Here I will show you a lovely USB flash drive which I made it by myself few days ago. And follow these steps, you can make one too

First we need few things before DIY.

1. An old or broken MP3 Player
2. Electric soldering iron (30W), Soldering tin, Rosin (You can buy all those thing in hardware store or online store, their price is low, totally less than 20 RMB)
3. USB flash drives case. (Check Blog about how to make a USB flash drive case.)
4. Control board of USB flash drive

If you’re going to buy PC board online or store, you will find out that there are many different kinds PC Boards. You should choose the one suitable for case.

The main PCB costs me 3 RMB and a lovely bear case costs me 4 RMB. I bought them in Taobao. You can buy on Ebay or Alibaba.

Lovely bear case

First, remove the case of your broken MP3 player, you will see flash chip on the control board which have 48 pins on the both sides. You still can check the flash chip name and code on surface. The chip under the red circle is the flash chip.

MP3 Players Flash Chip

You can use soldering iron and rosin to clean the tin on the pins. Clean up all the tin, otherwise the flash chip can’t be mounted into the main control board. There is a round pit on the flash chip surface and a circle on the control board. Make the pit completely overlaps the circle and then weld the flash chip pins on the motherboard.

Put the main control board into the metal shell, mind the connection direction.

Now, you can fix it on your USB flash case.

When plugging the USB flash drive on your computer, you will find out capacity is zero. Don’t be panic, because it still needs the last step which is just like formatting USB flash drive. Different kind flash chip has its own USB disk production tool software. Check the name on the flash chip and download the software on its company’s website.

Plug out and in again, it shows the exactly capacity it has.

Creating or refitting an electronic product requires elaborate work. You may learn some basic knowledge and inner structure about electronic product and the patience in the process. Work with your kids to refit a MP3 Player is a vivid course to train their handling ability. Save it and enjoy your time.