Re-orient Micro USB receptacle

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Hey everyone, hopefully this is the right place to ask what is hopefully not a foolish question.

I’m working on a project to permanently install an Asus Tablet into a mount, and due to the dimensions of the mount, the orientation of the USB receptacle on the device won’t allow for connection of a cable (required for powering the device). To that end, I’m trying to re-work the I/O board of the device so I can turn the USB receptacle 90 degrees.

It all started nice and easy, opening the case and extracting the board was no real trouble. Once I got the board out, I realized extracting the receptacle off of it was going to be rather particular. I had never worked with anything SMD before, so I picked up the Simon SMD kit here to try my hand before going at the goal. The Simon kit proved pretty easy, and I did a bit of replacing components several times just to get a feel for it. That went well, so I went ahead and tried to extract the port from the Asus board. Long story short, that proved nowhere near as easy. The thermal sink that was the USB connector combined with presumably the lead-free solder was quite a nightmare for me. I was able to finally get it extracted without any harm coming to the unit.

Now, unfortunately, I have hit a snag. When I first started, I hopped on DigiKey and Mouser and found a few seemingly suitable receptacles. They were SMD and Vertical mount instead of the standard orientation mounts that it had. Perfect, I 'm thinking. Well, I went ahead and ordered a few of them, and to my dismay I find that all vertical mount Micro USB receptacles have a PCB footprint that is opposite pin orientation from my board. For the horizontal orientation, they have both “standard” and “reverse” - this being “standard”.

The obvious answer would just be “well flip the receptacle around, dummy”. Which would work in theory, but the way the PCB is laid out, there are a couple of small SMD components (looks like a capacitor and a couple resistors, maybe a diode) that are physically in the way if I turn the receptacle around.

So far, foiled! I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to a good approach here.

My board sans-extraction

fheysMa.jpg800×389 75.7 KB
http://i.imgur.com/fheysMa.jpg

The connectors I have tried have all been oriented like this guy

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e … ND/4037910

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Supposing the pin orientation was correct, what is your plan for mechanically attaching the connector to the board? It doesn’t look to me like the tabs on the connector you have are going to mate anyhwere with the existing holes on the board. …and I presume you will have to cut a hole in the case for the re-oriented connector.

  1. You could try securing the connector to the board then wire from the connector pins to the board pads with wire wrap wire. (Could be some signal integrity issues here if you need to use the USB port for data also.)

  2. Get a USB Micro-B extension cable, cut off the socket end with some length of cable still attached (pigtail), solder the pigtail wires to the PCB pads, and run the pigtail out of the case

rr-mcb-ext-xxgbig.jpg800×800 67.3 KB
http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/images … xxgbig.jpg

  1. put the original connecor back on and just run some wires out that you can put a power connector on.
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I was planning to use potting epoxy and form a physical support in the empty space of the board, and then as you said, cut a hole in the back panel to allow access.

Flying wires from those pads seems impressively tricky, they’re 0.6mm leads. I suppose I can give that a go, but hoping for a more elegant solution.

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I have some boards with micro USB connectors. Mechanically they rely on tabs with glue/epoxy or some such rather than soldered tabs.

The glue tends to fail unless one “baby’s” plug removals.

My solution: I use a 7 port USB hub where each port has an on/off switch. $7 or eBay. So the number of unpluggings is greatly reduced.

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stevech:
My solution: I use a 7 port USB hub where each port has an on/off switch. $7 or eBay. So the number of unpluggings is greatly reduced.

That’s the same thing I do! Love those switches!