I took a standard USB 3.1 Gen 2 PCIE card. I cut the VUSB +5V. I then inserted a Linear regulated power supply there. Having card rather than Motherboard is a good start to begin with. Sorry forgot to take pictures. It is in the PC now. As you can imagine this is not hard to do but will make a nice improvement. DS only needs VUSB to “handshake” anyways, but why dump noise in it? After that goes to Jitterbug, then Intona. All on the same power supply from Uptone. I believe it is the JS-2 model.
@2chan4ever - Ok, so today I bought a phone for my wife w/ nano SIM card. New phones are just nano now… She was frantic to have a phone… her battery died and the new phone was a must… her old card had a micro SIM card. So, I cut down the micro SIM to nano SIM footprint to fit in her new phone. That’s all I got for today… it worked and I got huge points… if not I would have been dead🧐
Now that is taking a massive risk on the “something I made” thread…
I do not understand why what I did was a “massive risk”? I am not by any means MR. Smith but I can certainly read a Schematic and solder. I do not really understand what you mean if you are referring to something else? Please elaborate? This is very basic electronics. Yes, I can see how it can quickly go south but I am not that inept. Unless this has some other meaning I don’t “get”? I would really appreciate if you say what you are actually referring to? People have done much riskier things than this. At least I did not wire a Power cord backwards and I never would do so! I do not understand what you are attempting to say here? Obviously what you did “say” is being sarcastic but I do not get it. Perhaps I am stupid?
Neat.
It would never occur to me that this would work. I would expect to run into something critical and ruin the card.
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I specifically picked a card that was very easy. It had "shunts: For +/-. Just removed + shunt soldered the positive lead. Then soldered - lead to frame of card as the whole frame is grounded. I do not remember the model but it is from Startech.com. A lot of their stuff is very mod friendly. Did not have to mess with any diodes or anything. I would not have done this then. Just cut solder trace and soldered on the wire from PSU. Plus PSU has a lot of protection. So that is unlikely to blow up which is the expensive part. The card was $30 so no big deal if I killed it. However had I killed the PC would not be happy but checked with DVM first. There was no continuity to PCIE power trace after I cut it. Well yes, there was some risk but it worked! This is similar to those spliced cables with outboard power connection I suppose. It is right at the source though. I cannot recommend anyone else does this or at least at your own risk. Actually I was rather surprised myself nothing blew up but I pretty much figured this was okay to do on this particular card. Card is better than Mobo to begin with. Plus USB 3.1 Gen 2 is much better connector than USB 2.0. Another thing you can do is cut the + on a cable and connect the PSU to a Startech hub. That is probably much less risky. Although I figured given the design of this card the risk was rather low. I am not specifically looking to blow things up. In fact not at all. I figured this was pretty straightforward on this particular card. Another card, go cutting diodes I would not have undertaken.
All good, I took the risk. Sometimes you have to be crafty. The PWB (Printed Wire Board) is all contained within the nano foot print so theoretically, not a big deal but you are right, if something went wrong with the modification, Micro SIM card go bye bye and I would be standing there with a phone that does not work and a severely pissed off wife. Compound Easter the next day and it would have been ugly… Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you…
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@2chan4ever - I meant I took a massive risk. Seems real easy in theory; however, one slip of the blade and you are in hell for days…
Agreed. We both took a risk. It very well could have blown out the PC but at least it worked. I would honestly not recommend it unless you really know what you are doing, and I don’t.
2chan4ever,
At no time was cardri referring to you. He was talking about cutting down a sim card.
It was a huge risk, cut too much and the card is useless. All data lost.
Thanks, I saw the do it yourself and giggled about the risk I took… easy theoretically and it could bad very quickly…
Giggled is the correct response.
I remain amazed you pulled it off.
@Elk - the funny thing is looking at the micro-SIM and thinking… If I screw this up she is going crazy for days till I get it sorted out… every morning she wakes up and all in between… so I have that video going… as I overlay the nano-SIM card over the micro-SIM card and draw the outline… that is easy… then you pull out the exacto and start sweating… it is just sheer… oh crap… please God, don’t let me screw this up and then I’m praying to my son not to mess this up… so it is not the actual job… pretty easy… it is the risk of an oh crap… 
A little like brain surgery; easy, until you mess up.
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No, worse cause brain surgery is really complicated theoretically and practical execution. This is “yeah honey, easy, just cut down the micro-SIM”… then she says: “Oh sweetie, you are so smart” and you feel good for ~3.75seconds, till you say OOPS… then you are screwed for days…
We have risk matrixes that we get really good at filling out… “What if…” assessing risk. They are a cube and you can do them in your sleep after a few… and your life is like that when you do enough. I was thinking of that cube doing this. There are risk mitigation planned for high risk… and the mitigation plan burns down the risk as a function of time… this would be very low probability of event, life altering cost if realized…
What you undertook is probably much riskier than what I did! I honestly thought you were kidding, but no you really achieved that! That is both luck and skill right there. What I did, given the card I chose it was pretty straight forward. Although when I pressed that button I was praying for no smoke! It is honestly best not to do risky things. You could have blown new phone and I high end Music Server PC.
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It’s even better than that - I started with my “mini-sim”, later had to cut it to a “micro”, then a couple of years had to cut it again to nano sized.
Still the same sim, still working
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