How to reuse tablet wifi board

Nowadays we have a lot of old electronic devices that we can reuse totally or partially. The smaller the device the more difficult to reuse its components, but always we can find a way to reuse some of them.

In some Chinese tables is very common to find Realtek RTL8188EUS Wi-Fi board, and we can reuse it for our projects.

You only need to desolder the board from the motherboard, which depending on your experience with the soldering iron will be more or less easy, but in any case, it is not a complicated task.

To have the greatest versatility possible, we are going to use a USB cable, so that we can connect the Wi-Fi module to a computer, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.

Depending on the USB cable, the colors may vary (see schematics) but in general, the red is 5V, the black GND, the green data + and the white data-. You just have to solder each cable with its corresponding pin on the Wi-Fi board (see schematics).

Note: The board indicates that it needs a 3.3V power supply, but using the 5V of the USB also works, although it is not the preferred option.

The antenna is already pre-soldered, but if for any reason it comes loose, the inner cable must be connected to ANT and the outer sheath to GND. You can use any other coaxial cable if you want.

Also, you can print the case to protect the connections and the board.