Buying 72 pin connectors online?

[TmEE]

NES does not have 2.54mm contact centers, there is going to be some major lineup problems with those connectors...

[koitsu]

I know the answer is probably yes, but the games are nice and clean, correct? ... Wiemans is the only way to get games truely clean, if they're not cleaned with Wiemans, then I'd be the alcohol still left a layer that is causing interference with the contacts.

Yes, the connectors are clean. I also cleaned them again anyway (using ~60% rubbing alcohol and q-tips); clean as a whistle.

Can you point me to whatever this cleaning product is? Wieman appears to be a company that makes all sorts of different general cleaning products (from countertop to leather). I can buy whatever is needed, but gut feeling says it won't make a difference.

I've been think though, and the best option next to buying an expensive toploader is to just take a game genie connector and solder it to the NES motherboards connector. GG connectors are great. I may just do that, the more I think about it.

Which doesn't help since there's a limited number of Game Genies out there as well. :-)

Also, I should point out that the top-loader NES (since I have one) is susceptible to different problem -- the physical plastic region of the casing which is cut out for the cartridge slot is too wide/open. I have *tons* of games which, when used in my top-loader, require shoving a piece of cardboard between the cartridge and the plastic shell of the case. Without it, the cart wobbles too much and doesn't make good contact with the edge connector. There's maybe 1mm of space (0.5mm on the facial side, 0.5mm on the rear side) around the cartridge itself when inserted.

Maybe sometime soon I'll get a friend over here to record a video of me showing the exact problems (with the front-loader and the top-loader). I point these out because it cracks me up how everyone thinks the top-loader solves this problem entirely -- it doesn't.

EDIT: Decided to upload a video showing the problem. 7 minutes (I ramble), but shows the behaviour I'm talking about. Completely unedited.

[3gengames]

The Wiemans I use is this:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4 ... _SH20_.jpg

Works great. It's $5 at walmart when we got it a few years ago. It cleans hundreds of carts [About 400+ so far] and it only 1/3 gone for me. Until you can clean it with that, I'd say it just seems dirty. And also, my N64 was sort of the same way. You'd start a game, and either 10 minutes later it's start to glitch or it would die within 2 seconds of startup. The games were all cleaned with wiemans. We got it fixed by taking it apart and then inside the connector, put Tarn-X and then let it sit for a minute and clean it all off with a toothbrush. Got the connector very clean and now it works for hours on end with no freezes, you may want to try that.

You could also try to also tighten the spring so that the flap gives the cart support and if you could get enough, push it forward.

You're paranoid with even the slightest movement aren't you?

[infiniteneslives]

NES does not have 2.54mm contact centers, there is going to be some major lineup problems with those connectors...

?

The contacts are 0.100" (2.54 mm) pitch as I measure with my calipers anyways. Pitch being the start of one pin to the start of the next.

I ordered a pair of them this morning so we'll see how it goes. Worst case I'll return them.

[chykn]

The contacts are 0.100" (2.54 mm) pitch as I measure with my calipers anyways. Pitch being the start of one pin to the start of the next.

I ordered a pair of these connectors a couple weeks ago. I found that if I centered the cart in the connector, the pins will connect as expected. But it has to be centered, and even then it barely makes contact on the outside pins since the contacts on the cart have a 2.5mm pitch instead of 2.54mm.

[koitsu]

The Wiemans I use is this: ...

Awesome, thank you! I'll pick some up next week and give it a try. Even if it doesn't fix the problem, having something that cleans cartridge pins and actual edge connectors is worth it.

You could also try to also tighten the spring so that the flap gives the cart support and if you could get enough, push it forward.

This might sound like an idiotic question (hey I'm not a mechanical engineer), but: how do I tighten the springs? Just pull on each end to stretch it out (slightly)? Won't they just go back to the same tension they were before?

You're paranoid with even the slightest movement aren't you? :D

Talking about the top-loader: :-) It might seem like I'm being OCD ("who touches their carts once they're inserted?!") but honestly I'm not. The problem is that many carts simply don't work until you wiggle them around or find the "perfect angle" for them to be at. Someone bumps my table, puts down a cup of tea, whatever -- game crashes. Serious bummer.

Switching back to the front-loader: connector pitch (being discussed here) almost sounds like what this problem is, re: chykn stating that the cartridge connector has to be perfectly centred/aligned (vertically and horizontally). I wonder if the connector I bought has the wrong pitch. Hmm.

[infiniteneslives]

Switching back to the front-loader: connector pitch (being discussed here) almost sounds like what this problem is, re: chykn stating that the cartridge connector has to be perfectly centred/aligned (vertically and horizontally). I wonder if the connector I bought has the wrong pitch. Hmm.

Did you get a replacement that looks like the original connector? I doubt they would do that to you but I guess it's possible.

I made the mistake of just measuring one pin to see if the pitch would match, now that I measure 10 pins and divide by 10 I see how I was wrong If you've got a calipers you could check your connector in the same manner.

[koitsu]

Did you get a replacement that looks like the original connector? I doubt they would do that to you but I guess it's possible.

I don't know what the "original connector" looks like, because the front-loader I bought from eBay was one of those "INCLUDES NEW 72-PIN CONNECTOR L@@K" sales. I can tell you for certain, however, that the connector it came with looks the exact same (and has the same feel/type of plastic/pin colour/etc.) as the replacement I bought a week later.

One thing I did notice was that the seller shipped me the console with some games, one of which was in the cart slot when the product arrived. I was pretty upset about that.

Some of the pins looked like they had been pressed for quite some time, the first thing I did (before buying a new connector) was the famous "lift-the-pins-up trick" using a very small screwdriver. It had absolutely no effect.

I made the mistake of just measuring one pin to see if the pitch would match, now that I measure 10 pins and divide by 10 I see how I was wrong :( If you've got a calipers you could check your connector in the same manner.

Sadly I don't have calipers. Probably something I should invest in; the number of tools I have these days astounds me. Maybe I really am getting old.

[kevtris]

NES does not have 2.54mm contact centers, there is going to be some major lineup problems with those connectors...

?

The contacts are 0.100" (2.54 mm) pitch as I measure with my calipers anyways. Pitch being the start of one pin to the start of the next.

I ordered a pair of them this morning so we'll see how it goes. Worst case I'll return them.

They are NOT .1" they are 2.5mm apart. This is slightly smaller; it causes an error buildup over several pins. .1" connectors might work but will probably be finicky.

[infiniteneslives]

NES does not have 2.54mm contact centers, there is going to be some major lineup problems with those connectors...

?

The contacts are 0.100" (2.54 mm) pitch as I measure with my calipers anyways. Pitch being the start of one pin to the start of the next.

I ordered a pair of them this morning so we'll see how it goes. Worst case I'll return them.

They are NOT .1" they are 2.5mm apart. This is slightly smaller; it causes an error buildup over several pins. .1" connectors might work but will probably be finicky.

Well they showed up today and I'm pretty happy with them so far.

I haven't put anything together yet, but I did some quick continuity checks with my multimeter and I couldn't cause any connection problems testing it out with a board removed from it's case.

There is only 0.019" free play side to side with the board in the connector and I could get anything to loose contact or short between pins. I know there may be a technical difference in exact pitch, but they work perfectly together.

TmEE must have gotten a different one than this, perhaps more free play than mine?

I've done some placement with the NES and I think I've found a good solution using some protoboard. There is a slight clearance issue that can easily be fix or avoided without much affect.

I'll post it up with pictures when I get something completed in the next day or two.

[infiniteneslives]

Well I got everything together this evening here are some pictures





So I'll admit it's not the best solution out there. The pitch issue I'm claiming to be a non-issue. The only time I saw anything was when testing it out before fully assembling everything. The mobo card edge has a little more free play and I was able to cause issues by sliding the connector too far from center. But I slid it back and everything was fine. So as long as it's properly aligned with the mobo during install it's okay

It is still susceptible to dirty cartridges, I'd say it's about as good as my toploader when it comes to dirt issues. But going though and properly cleaning all your carts goes a long way as you're all saying.

It will play a clean game without pressing down the game to it's normal position. Pressing the game down will help a game that's dirty sometimes.

The thing I'm most happy with though is shock protection. I litterally shook the thing in my hands as hard as I could and banged on the side of the nintendo case and I couldn't get it to glitch. I tried really hard, the only way I think I could have shocked it more was actually drop it from a few feet but that would have been a little excessive.

I tested out the toploader to see how sensitive it was to shock comparatively and it was really easy to get my toploader to glitch due to the free play koitsu was complaining about.

It's also not very easy to assemble. I made the protoboard a little longer than I needed to provide more support when inserting games and it made it more difficult to put everything together. And the connectors were a little fat which caused some issues too. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

[3gengames]

How did you get it to not move off when the game is inserted? And hey, if it works, it works.

[infiniteneslives]

You can see a little in the last picture that the protoboard extends high enough to meet the black cross bar.

Doing that made it more difficult to assemble but made it a lot more study.

[koitsu]

The Wiemans I use is this: ...

Awesome, thank you! I'll pick some up next week and give it a try. Even if it doesn't fix the problem, having something that cleans cartridge pins and actual edge connectors is worth it.

Holy shit, I'm tickled pink. The Weiman stuff solved literally both problems I was seeing with my top-loader as well as my front-loader. The games work reliably every single time (I must've reinserted them a good 30 times), and the "jostling problem" I was seeing on both console types is completely gone.

I'll see if I can put together a video showing folks how I did the cleaning. I don't have one of those nice fabric "strips" that you can use to clean cart connectors (really should get one), so I've been using Q-tips, which is a little tricky with the Weiman's goop. I then use paper towels to dry off the connectors, followed by using canned air (or just blowing) on the connector (since paper towels leave tons of crap laying around inside of the cartridge connector area).

Cleaning carts would be a lot easier if I could open them; my NES cartridge bit is in the garage somewhere but I can't be bothered to find it. :-)

I'm also surprised the stuff doesn't smell that bad. *laugh* I expected a chemical smell -- no such thing.

Thanks a ton, 3gengames. This stuff really does work.

[3gengames]

Glad it worked! Now if we can just convince all those people that are hell bent on not using it because alcohol is "just fine" and then complain about the same thing. But just make sure you wipe it off good. I clean up with water on the connector and dry that off. If you leave it on, I can imagine a bad residue would be present and not be good at all, just watch how it dries at the top of the bottle over time, and flakes off. But oh well, I'm sure you wiped it clean good.

And also, I'd say the best way to clean it is a sturdy rag, 1/4th wet and the rest dry, so you don't have to switch between the different towels and have lots of cloth to get use with wiemans and then it's reuasable. Elbow pressure is sort of needed with the wiemans for bad cases, and you need a tough towel to get it all off.