What used to be a “light box” had become a “light pad” powered through a USB Micro-B connector on the side. Unfortunately, the pad’s 5 mm thickness allows for very little mechanical reinforcement around the USB jack, while providing infinite opportunity to apply bending force. Over the course of the last half-dozen years (during which the price has dropped dramatically, despite recent events), the slightest motion flickered the LEDs.
So I squished the jack’s metal shell back into shape, found a short right-angle USB cable, and conjured a reinforcing fixture from the vasty digital deep:
The plate fits under the light pad, where a strip of super-sticky duct tape holds it in place:
The USB plug fits between the two blocks with hot-melt glue holding it in place and filling the gap between the plug and the pad.
I’d like to say it’s more elegant than the cable redirection for my tablet, but anything involving black electrical tape and hot-melt glue just isn’t in the running for elegant:
On the other paw, that socket ought to last pretty nearly forever, which counts for a whole lot more around here.
The retina-burn orange tape patches on the connector eliminate all the fumbling inherent to an asymmetric connector with invisible surface features. The USB wall wart on the other end of the cable sports similar markings.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
| // Bracket to protect USB jack on LitUp LED Pad | |
| // Ed Nisley KE4ZNU 2022-03-28 | |
| Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly | |
| Pad = [10.0,30.0,1.2]; | |
| Plug = [8.0,10.5 + 0.5,8.0]; | |
| BasePlate = [Pad.x + Plug.x,Pad.y,Pad.z]; | |
| //---------- | |
| // Create parts | |
| module Stiffener() { | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([-Pad.x,-BasePlate.y/2,0]) | |
| cube(BasePlate,center=false); | |
| translate([0,-Pad.y/2,0]) | |
| cube([Plug.x,Pad.y,Plug.z],center=false); | |
| } | |
| translate([-Protrusion,-Plug.y/2,-Protrusion]) | |
| cube(Plug + [2*Protrusion,0,Plug.z],center=false); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //---------- | |
| // Build them | |
| Stiffener(); |
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
“anything involving black electrical tape and hot-melt glue just isn’t in the running for elegant”.
And with that, hindsight would show, the gauntlet had been thrown down…
:-)
In my defense, I did use super-fancy black duct tape!