FYI

If I’ve sent you an email about your cable being ready and you haven’t replied by tomorrow, I’m going to move down the list to the next person.

[mellott124]

It’s official now. First link cable being shipped out. The black heat shrink on one end marks Player 1 as defined by Hyper Fighting. Took longer than I expected but hopefully I get faster at building them.

Hyper Fighting just starts working after you select VERSUS on both Virtual Boys, as I mentioned. TicTacToe and 3D BattleSnake seem to want player 2 to start things off. When I try to use Player 1 to initiate, things lock up. I could be wrong on the boot up assumption but letting Player 2 kick it off always works.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by mellott124.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by mellott124.

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e5frog wrote:
Instead of this guessing competition for monetary impaired people, wouldn’t it be better to say something like “$35 and tip is allowed”.

I see this pattern emerging:

$25.10 – nope
$25.20 – nope
$25.30 …
…

etc

😉

I’m experimenting. I’ll see how it goes and if it becomes a pain, I’ll just set a price.

It’s going to be small batches while there is interest. I’m guessing no more than 50 or 100 will ever be made. That’s my guess at the moment. Remember these are hand made.

For pricing, material is about $25 per cable and about 30 min to build a single cable. So, like I said previously, I’ll let people offer their own price. It needs to be above $25 and I reserve the right to not sell you one if the price is too low. Really the idea is to get these to people who have always needed or wanted one. Any extra monies usually go back into other projects I have going.

I’ll be contacting the first few developers and buyers on the list this weekend.

Got the new parts and they look really good. The orientation change really made the print nice. I’ll be building with these parts.

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Seam wrote:
Is there a video of this english patched version anywhere? I couldn’t find one on youtube.

If I get a chance this weekend I’ll try to record some and post it.

retronintendonerd wrote:

mellott124 wrote:

The first batch is about 10 or 12 cables. Those are all gone but there will be more once those ship. All the parts are on their way and should be here probably this weekend.

I’m planning on making 25 cables at the moment. All parts except the actual connector have been ordered for the 25 (meaning cabling and pins). I have connector parts currently coming for 12 complete cables. I’ve had some printed FDM using Onyx and some printed SLS using a PA12 material. I’m testing different print methods and materials and so don’t want to order too many to begin with. Additional ones are coming in ABS but I’m guessing the quality will be too low. If the ABS versions are acceptable then I may have more initially.

Have you decided how much you’re gonna be selling these for?

Yes. I’m going to do a bit of an experiment with this first batch. I’ll let everyone know what the build cost is and then they can offer their own price through PM. It obviously has to be above what it costs to make. People will need to cover their own shipping as well.

Wyndcrosser wrote:
Is there open slots for the cable? I guess I missed this and im interested.

The first batch is about 10 or 12 cables. Those are all gone but there will be more once those ship. All the parts are on their way and should be here probably this weekend.

I’m planning on making 25 cables at the moment. All parts except the actual connector have been ordered for the 25 (meaning cabling and pins). I have connector parts currently coming for 12 complete cables. I’ve had some printed FDM using Onyx and some printed SLS using a PA12 material. I’m testing different print methods and materials and so don’t want to order too many to begin with. Additional ones are coming in ABS but I’m guessing the quality will be too low. If the ABS versions are acceptable then I may have more initially.

e5frog wrote:
Nice, did they print at better quality or did they polish it?

Same print settings. Different orientation. No polishing.

New parts on the way with improved surface finish.

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Design updated and new parts on order.

I’ll have the first 5 to 6 cables ready next week.

MineStorm wrote:
Are the shells 3D printed ?

Any chance I can have the .stl ?

Thanks

Yes the current prototype parts are 3D printed. For the current 20 or so cables people are requesting, the parts are likely to stay 3D printed.

I’m not sharing the design files at the moment. I may in the future.

e5frog wrote:
If you 3D print with ABS you can wipe it with or use an acetone fog to make the surface more smooth, other than that possibly sand it or sand it and paint it… 3D prints are a bit boring that way.

So I guess you should mark one end as master and the other slave, maybe with a piece of shrink tubing on one end or similar.

I’ll try a few other materials. I’m going to have milling and molds quoted, although I’m guessing they’ll be too expensive, especially for the center piece.

The onyx material is nice structurally. The parts are very strong. The samples had a much better finish so I’m going to talk with Markforged. Maybe my vendor needs a cal on their machine. Not sure yet.

OK, first cable built. Needs some updates. And it’s a pain to build but it’s working. Hyper Fighting is definitely the smoothest as it doesn’t matter which end is plugged into which. Enter Versus mode and one VB waits for the other.

For TicTacToe and 3D-Battlesnake you have to select the correct player based on which end of the cable you have plugged in, so there’s boot order. Otherwise things just hang up.

I need to tighten up some of the dimensions and thicken a few things up here and there but otherwise it’s not too bad. I wish the surface finish was a bit more consistent. I’ll have to talk to the vendor to see what could be done.

Kevin

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Nevermind. Just got it working in Hyper Fighting!!!

Can anyone who has actually used 2 player mode confirm the pinout?

I’ve used both the wiki and the other post on pinout. Neither work. I do see one VB syncing it’s displays to another. But can never get 2 player to work in either Hyper Fighting, TicTacToe, or 3D BattleSnake.

First prototype parts come tomorrow. Here’s a sneak peak from the manufacturer. I see some rough edges in the pictures so surface finish may not be as smooth as I’d hoped but they should still be functional (fingers crossed!).

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MineStorm wrote:

I’ve actually picked this project up

So you squared it with Pat (dogP) ?

I know he’s put a lot of time and money into this project.

There’s nothing to square. This is a completely independent project. I’m not sure I understand?

KR155E wrote:
This looks amazing, Kevin. Thank you so much for supporting the development scene with free cables!

Do you think a VB-to-USB cable would be possible, so the VB could speak to a computer? I am thinking about online Hyper Fighting versus play and such. 🙂

@e5frog: Here’s a list of homebrews supporting the link cable:
– 3-D BattleSnake
– Hyper Fighting
– Tic Tac Toe
– Virtual Boy Link Cable Test

I’m going to stick to the basic VB to VB cable for now. I have a few other projects going in addition to this cable and don’t want to sideline them with another one. Once this VB to VB version is done, I’ll think more about the VB-to-USB version. Once the connectors are done and verified then other versions will be possible.

I’ve had some questions about cost of carbon fiber connectors. Just to clarify, they’re going to be black nylon carbon reinforced parts. It’s made from a material called Onyx which is black nylon with chopped carbon fiber. It also has the option of adding additional non-chopped carbon fiber. It’s very durable and has a nice finish. Durability is something I’m concerned about and I’ve met with the company and this material looks perfect for this project.

I may need to do a spin or two on the connector but the first prototypes are due next week. I’ll update here with pictures of the first units.

Kevin

Lester Knight wrote:
To clarify, this project picks up just the VB-to-VB link cable that DogP was working on or is this a completely new design?

This is a completely new design from scratch.