So I ditched the ethernet module. That just left me with a large hole in the back of the case. I was also finding it difficult to properly wire in power with the usb cable i had hacked the end off. And the usb b mini port under the usb hubs were slightly unsightly.

So the solution was to find something that would fit... And two USB B sockets side by side fitted nicely (with a minor case modification.

A USB uart module with a USB A module was modified to add a USB B socket, with another added in parallel with the power leads only. An extra header pin was added to the 5v and gnd wires on the underside of the uart module. The shells of the two usb sockets were soldered together. You have to file the two points to solder first, otherwise the solder won't take. Once again, hot glue was added to make it mechanically robust.

Once the modified USB uart module had been finished, I again soldered it to the steel case. It required getting the iron up to a very hot 480 degrees c.