I really like to take electronics apart and put them back together again. I don’t usually tinker with working electronics, but when something is broken, I enjoy the attempts to fix it. This little project took a some internet searching, a new set of tools, and some on-the-fly problem solving. I didn’t find a complete answer anywhere else online, so I’m posting my solution for the benefit of whoever else may be searching for a fix.

The problem

On her previous visit, my mother-in-law brought us her Garmin nüvi 1450 GPS box, asking if we could remove a microSD card that was stuck in the card reader slot. She had put the card in the wrong way around, but then she couldn’t get it back out. She had apparently tried to use tweezers or pliers—and eventually a table knife—to pull or pry the card out of the slot. The result was a card that wasn’t just stuck, but fully jammed into the slot, with a broken-off end. Only a short nub stuck out, hardly enough to grab onto. The opening to the card reader slot is slightly recessed in the body, so even tweezers had a hard time reaching enough of the nub to get a good pull. I decided to take the case off to get a better reach.