Project VBoot

First progress update is up. All future progress update will be posted directly to this page:

http://brennanthl.wordpress.com/

I’m up for suggestions on that one. I know some members here have 3D models of the case but it would be expensive to have them made and I don’t know much about case design. For now I’m more worried about functionality and getting the right connector. I was toying with the idea of not using a case at all and putting a conformal coat over the PCB to protect against ESD and sharp edges. And then I would put spacers on the board so it fits correctly against the VB, and add a hand grip at the end for removing the cart from the system. The VB community is pretty sophisticated anyway so I don’t really have to “childproof” the cartridge.

Does anyone have the dimensions for a (original) gameboy cartridge off hand? I know it’s not the same as a VB cart but they are plentiful and I could potentially hack it and try to make it work. I personally don’t care about having a case for the cart, but I understand it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

If you check my project page at http://brennanthl.wordpress.com/project-vboot/

you will notice I did not mention anything about price. I am not very concerned with that right now, because there are many other things I need to figure out at the moment. My guess is that the final design would [unfortunately] not be much cheaper than the Flashboy, and here is why:

1) Board cost. Can’t get around this. If I make a huge order of boards than the per-board cost goes down but this requires that there is enough interest/demand such that I can unload all/most of them
2) Memory costs. A 32M SRAM costs about $36 for a single part, and a 16M SRAM costs $22 for a single part, for the parts I’m currently looking at. These will go down if I order in bulk of course, but again, I’m just a college student and I don’t really have the resources to order parts in large quantities in the near future.
3) Processor and other component costs. SD card will probably cost about $5-10 depending on the size
4) VB connector, which will probably end up costing about $8 each
5) VB cart case, which is up in the air as far as cost goes

Now, as for additional charges on top of the above, I wouldn’t do that. I would sell the cart for what it cost me to build, plus a little more to cover packaging, shipping, extraneous build costs, time spent assembling, etc. I’m not looking to make much money on this thing, I have a day job for that. 😀 Unfortunately for us, the hardware required in such a device is fairly rare and by no means inexpensive. There are just certain price restrictions I can’t get around.

Fwirt wrote:

Vaughanabe13 wrote:
Does anyone have the dimensions for a (original) gameboy cartridge off hand? I know it’s not the same as a VB cart but they are plentiful and I could potentially hack it and try to make it work. I personally don’t care about having a case for the cart, but I understand it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

No dice, VB cartridges are way thinner than GB carts. In fact, VB cartridges are just about the thinnest carts I can think of. You can fit a VB cart inside a Game Gear cart carrying case, unfortunately you have to rotate it 90-degrees so that wouldn’t work either. (Plus the fact that Game Gear carts are getting to be somewhat of a rarity too.) Personally, I’d be fine with a bare PCB, but from MineStorm’s comment, I would guess that that isn’t true for everyone else.

On a side note, I didn’t notice this thread when you posted it, really nice work dude. I probably wouldn’t be able to afford this any more than a FlashBoy (or an EPROM cart for that matter) but I was always wondering, “How would you go about making an SD cart?” I’m glad someone has the engineering skills to get it done. What are you getting your degree in?

Yeah, I finally got a calipers and measured the GB cartridge so I know what you’re talking about. Plus my board has to be bigger than the area of a GB cart anyway because of all the traces. The biggest physical-size problem I’m having right now is trying to figure out the VB connector. I have some connectors that are a very very close match, but they aren’t thin enough. So I have to sand away some of the plastic, but that weakens the integrity of the connector, and it also doesn’t have the two raised grooves that the VB cart does, so it might make insertion hard. I mean, theoretically once you put this cart in your VB you should never have to take it out (just the SD card, which can be easily popped out), but I can’t rely on that because some people will be using it on multiple VBs and may be inserting/removing it often. As far as the bare pcb goes, I’m afraid people have been spoiled by the great work Minestorm has done on the Flashboy and using donor carts. At this point I don’t think my cart will even fit inside a VB case, because I have to put components on both sides of the PCB, which increases the thickness.

Affordability is always going to be a problem with this kind of cart, unfortunately. The VB technology is really old and the components are rare and expensive. The board costs won’t be so bad if there is a high enough demand, because I can make large batches of PCBs and get a discount that way. It all depends on how many people are interested in something like this. I can’t imagine I would be able to make this cart any cheaper than $60-70 USD but it’s tough to say. Again, I don’t care about making a profit or anything. I might even put the designs and firmware out there for DIY people who want to order their own board and components.

Thanks man, I appreciate the compliment. I’m currently finishing my last semester of undergraduate work, so I’ll be graduating in December with a Bachelor’s of Electrical/Computer Engineering. After that I’ll probably get a Master’s through my company, but I haven’t decided what I want to focus in.