I use Micros for all of my sensor projects. Unfortunately, the front of the usb connector has lifted away from the board on a couple of them, probably due to trying to fit them into a cramped space with the usb lead connected, so the USB connection is intermittent. I tried fixing the connectors down (held in place & soldered the fixing tabs) but that hasn’t helped.
Is there a small usb board that I could connect the Micro to using the serial pins? If so, would I need to modify the sketch in some way to send the data that way?
Or is the only way of using these damaged boards to send data from the serial pins to another Arduino?
Thanks
I have a board (not Micro) with this problem. I just use a USB to serial converter board and connect the tx,rx and cts signals. The cts signal goes to the reset pin through a 100nf capacitor.
Unfortunately not
You can use ICSP programing though. Use a good micro to program a bad micro
I assume that Micro means Arduino Micro and not microcontroller 
There are small boards with a USB connector and some pads but they need to be connected to the USB lines of the Arduino Micro.
To prevent this problem in the future you can consider to use a panel mount USB connector/cable (micro-usb panel mount - Google Search). That will take the strain of the USB connector on the board. E.g. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15464.
@oldcurmudgeon
So something like this…
( SparkFun Serial Basic Breakout - CH340C and USB-C)
?
@jim-p That’s new to me. If I understand correctly (https://docs.arduino.cc/built-in-examples/arduino-isp/ArduinoISP/?queryID=undefined) that would allow me to burn sketches onto the damaged board from another Arduino (?). But I would still have to use the serial out pins to send data (to another arduino)?
Rx and Tx are not used during ICSP programming, only the SPI pins.
You can't use that; the Micro's bootloader uses the native USB of the microcontroller. @oldcurmudgeon did overlook that.
That will indeed allow you to program the Micro. And you can use Tx/Rx to communicate with other Arduinos (and when using the breakout with a PC). You will loose HID functionality and Rx/Tx are Serial1 so you need to take that into account.
Thanks for all of the very quick responses.
I found some older postings from people with a similar problem, and given the low price of the boards, I think I’ll just buy new ones, and keep the broken ones until I need a direct arduino to arduino connection (some kind of distributed sensor system perhaps).
And be a lot more careful with the USB socket in future!
OOPs, I forgot the Micro is more like a Leonardo than an UNO. As noted by others you can use ICSP to program it and you lose the base serial via USB function.
only because the usb connector was ripped off.
Which means you cannot use serial.xx() in your code. you would have to rewrite it to use serial1.xx() for the hardware UART connection on D0 and D1. If you want to talk to your PC probably add a USB to serial converter. Probably more trouble than it is worth
I think you’re right on that.
It seems to me that the usb ports on the Micro are not that securely fixed to the board. THere are small metal tabs on the sides of the socket, and there are slots in the board for them, but they don’t seem to be actually fixed in there. Oh well, more care needed in future.
thanks again to all for the input...
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