nesdev.org

If I was mass producing my NES game and selling it off, what company should I ask?

I'm talking more about the PCB, Cart shell/casing, and more likely the EEPROM installation.

I heard from an interview with the Battle Kid developer that he gets them from someone in Hong Kong, but I'm not sure who it is. Sure, I could get some random cart PCB (Donor, Repro Cart, etc,.) and ask someone to print over 1,000 copies of it (or even print some of my own), get a 3D printer and scanner to scan & print the cart shell + get some compatible screws, and either get someone who's willing to solder the EEPROMS (and possibly battery), have a machine do it, or even have myself do it, but do any of you know what company can produce such things?

As for the boxes and manuals: That's taken care of.

You could start at infiniteneslives.com or retrousb.com.

The major problem for the PCB is that it needs to have between 1mm and 1.2mm pitch, and that have to be absolutely enforced. Most producer only offer 1.6mm
Also you'd want to have gold plated contacts.

A NES cart case with a 3D printer ? Interesting concept. However I'd be afraid it would be very fragile (3D printed objects are basically some sand grains glued together).
That being said 3D printers will probably be THE best invention of the 21th century. I'm looking forward for when they'll be affordable etc... Will be much better than smartphones or other crap like this.

infiniteneslives.com sells pre-assembled boards (including flash, ram and battery) for a few popular mappers including Color Dreams, MMC1, MMC3 and FME7, and can do just about any discrete mapper you want by special request. These boards can then be programmed using the programmer board available at his site. He says he can do large quantity board orders as well.

He does not have the cart cases yet, but says he's put a deposit down for the custom molds at a local plastics manufacturer and should have a ready supply sometime in the near future.

I'm sure INL will respond to this thread shortly with all the details He's a regular here and has done a lot to help and support the community. I own the aforementioned programmer and flash-able carts, and they work a treat. I even offer limited Linux software support for them

Also thought I'd point out that INL's boards fit nicely in my Yobo clone connector. Not sure what the actual pitch is though. I don't have any calipers

I've only got centiinch calipers, but the cartridge edge is just under 50mil thick on my copy of A53, and a NES-CNROM-256-05 board I have is just barely over 50mil.

Bregalad wrote: A NES cart case with a 3D printer ? Interesting concept. However I'd be afraid it would be very fragile (3D printed objects are basically some sand grains glued together).
That being said 3D printers will probably be THE best invention of the 21th century. I'm looking forward for when they'll be affordable etc... Will be much better than smartphones or other crap like this.

I was thinking '3D printing' was more substantial, but we could be talking about two different processes. Allot of the new 3D printing is a XYZ controlled flow of melted poly plastic. Just in the news here, there was concern about '3D printed' plastic guns with no metal parts, so seems like it is kind of robust.
The Issue that I could see is the finish. As I understand one need to sand the finished object for a fine finish, but I've only read about the whole process.
Yogi

Bregalad is thinking of one of the plaster-based ones, which are what most of the moderately-cheap-but-better-than-hobbyist 3d printers use.

Modern 3d plastic extruders work moderately well for specific shapes, but between the lower softening point of PLA and ABS, the lower strength of both the plastics, and the extrusion-based assembly, you'll have difficulty making two parts mate as cleanly as well as you might want. Works ok for a one-off, though.

If you're actually looking to make 1000+, definitely look into getting a real injection mold made. Lost-wax casting (or in this case, lost plastic master) is possibly easier than a real CAD solution.

For a one-off, getting someone with a CNC mill to make it using subtractive processes might be better.

Yeah I once thought I was going to print decent NES cases with a 3d extruding/reprap printer. It's not reasonable for production use though. The guy making my NES injection molds printed out a prototype with his 3d printer and it turned out plenty sturdy, but has mating issues like lidnariq brought up. Good for a one off, but that's about it.

lidnariq wrote:I've only got centiinch calipers, but the cartridge edge is just under 50mil thick on my copy of A53, and a NES-CNROM-256-05 board I have is just barely over 50mil.

Yeah they're 1.7mm just like the originals. The pitch of the connectors is as identical to the originals as I was able to measure with my calipers.

qbradq wrote:infiniteneslives.com sells pre-assembled boards (including flash, ram and battery) for a few popular mappers including Color Dreams, MMC1, MMC3 and FME7, and can do just about any discrete mapper you want by special request. These boards can then be programmed using the programmer board available at his site. He says he can do large quantity board orders as well.

He does not have the cart cases yet, but says he's put a deposit down for the custom molds at a local plastics manufacturer and should have a ready supply sometime in the near future.

The above is pretty accurate. Current schedule on the mold completion is ~March of next year. If you're looking for any details let me know. I made a giant post on one of my board threads along these lines.

Bregalad wrote:The major problem for the PCB is that it needs to have between 1mm and 1.2mm pitch, and that have to be absolutely enforced. Most producer only offer 1.6mm
Also you'd want to have gold plated contacts.
True....
A NES cart case with a 3D printer ? Interesting concept. However I'd be afraid it would be very fragile (3D printed objects are basically some sand grains glued together).
That being said 3D printers will probably be THE best invention of the 21th century. I'm looking forward for when they'll be affordable etc... Will be much better than smartphones or other crap like this.

Actually, you could go on Thingiverse and find that..... no, seriously.......

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:143434

Though I do agree, it might be too fragile....... might as well just get a lot from RetroUSB.

NESmaniac wrote:might as well just get a lot from RetroUSB.

Unfortunately that's easier said than done...

infiniteneslives wrote:

NESmaniac wrote:might as well just get a lot from RetroUSB.

Unfortunately that's easier said than done...

Yea, I've kept up with your issues with the RetroUSB cases during the Streamzer bundle project. That's why I didn't even list it as an option, even with my usual disclaimer

What were the problems? I thought it was just about missing screws?

WhatULive4 wrote:What were the problems? I thought it was just about missing screws?

That was the issue for the first batch. I don't really want to get into the nitty gritty drama of the issues I had with the second batch in public, defacing retrozone is not my goal. So lets just say with the second batch it became apparent that if I wanted a reliable supply of cases in sizable quantities, I needed to obtain my own mold. That said, I have had good experiences ordering things from retrozone that were listed in stock and available for immediate checkout.

Doing business with retrozone is not a pleasant experience. Hopefully if the proprietor sees this thread they can take it as constructive criticism from long-time customers and understand that things need to change. Otherwise these young bucks are going to be running them out of business.

The names and avatars of the forum regulars have been changed to protect fragile egos