USB Flash Drive Hidden Inside the Power Bank

In this project you will find, how old Power bank and old USB Flash Memory Drive became a new unusual thing.

- Power bank;

- USB Flash drive;

- SPDT Reed switch;

- Magnet (22mm);

- Wire (1m) - heat resistant wire 0.1mm;

- Heat shrink tube - 12mm and 3mm diameter;

- Kapton tape (20mm width) - you may try to use generic electrical tape;

- RFID Tag (1x) - or any case where you can put a magnet.

- Soldering Iron. 8W, USB powered soldering iron;

- Screwdriver. Phillips screwdriver from phone repair sets.;

- Tweezers;

- Wire cutters;

- Guitar Pic;

- Exacto Knife.

Power bank shown in this project are no longer available for sale, even more power banks with such construction are quite rare nowadays.

The main problem with more modern power banks is that they have glued pouch cells to the outer case, which in some cases make the disassembly process nearly impossible.

I recommend salvaging old models if possible which in most cases even with pouch cells can be easily disassembled. If you choose to use more modern models, you can still disassemble power banks with uni-body metal shells.

Make sure that Power Bank fully discharged, don't punch, use brutal force or heat above 60 degree Celsius battery cells.

In this project I use very common and popular, also still available, despite the many year model of USB Flash Drive.

Flash module held by insert which can be removed by using a modified hair pin.

For this, we should band pin ends 90 degree in the opposite direction by each other, length of each bending should be about 3mm.

There is nothing complex here. We should desolder the Vcc pin from the main board and connect it to the reed switch. Next I desolder data pins, because as I found if you don't do that, the power bank will stack in the charging loop, and drain itself slowly.

To carry the magnet more easily, we can put a magnet inside the RFID Key tag.

Because there is almost no clearance between case and battery cells, it's quite difficult to put all assembly back, I carefully guide each wire to avoid screw channels.

For more details watch video and fill free to leave a comment.