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"NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 7:30 pm
by Myask
...has had broken links for about 6 years.

Can one of our manufacturing memb[l]ers supply replacements/good information here?

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 3:11 pm
by Jeroen
Since I JUST made some pcbs, I will upload my measurements, will edit in links.

edit: I believe these to be correct, but I take no responsibility.

http://imgur.com/a/DnCR2

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 9:59 pm
by Jeroen
If you refresh the page you'll find a (crappy) diagram :)

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 11:13 pm
by Myask
...of an NROM board, not an NES cartridge.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 11:27 pm
by Jeroen
Seem to have derped on updating the page. Sadly I have no cartridge dimensions. (Feel free to measure them :) )

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 12:12 am
by rainwarrior
I appreciate the diagrams, but why did you add such a prominent watermark?

It's not normal for wiki image contributions to have a signature like that (attribution is made clear by metadata), and it's very distracting from the actual information content.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 1:01 am
by Jeroen
Cause I wanted to.

edit: uploaded a watermarkless version as requested. But not sure how to update the thumbnail.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 1:13 am
by rainwarrior
Thank you.

Thumbnails are cached, I think, they'll get updated eventually on their own.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 1:14 am
by Jeroen
Ok good. :P

Btw someone already linked me a more professional looking image, so I hope that gets finished/uploaded soon enough :D

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 3:02 am
by Memblers
The only board layout I have that I'm 100% happy with is what I've got on GTROM, and it's smaller than Jeroen's drawing. And the cart shells I use are slightly different from Nintendo's boards, it only matters when making a full-size board, but mine gives you a little more room since it doesn't include the alignment post used Nintendo used for their Famicom adapters.

I use Proteus 7 for my NES boards, it's a commercial program so there's probably not much use in posting in it's file format. But it can export some formats, DXF, EPS, PDF, HGL. I can work a little with DXF, so I've attached one of those. Interestingly, this format doesn't include a measurement unit, and Proteus just has "scale" and a number, so importing it is kind of a process.. But if you get it to 100mm across, that would be correct.

Measurements on my board look slightly different from Jeroen's drawing, here are the ones that are different:
1.5mm = 1.8mm
3.25mm = 3.2mm
93.5 = 93.6mm

I suppose it could vary by manufacturer maybe, I've never specified a size for the edge routing tool. In any case it's always good to a test run before you make a lot of any board.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:28 am
by Jeroen
The boards are a little tight (I chucked it up due to the circular bit not getting the edges completely) so you might be correct about those top two at least.

93.5 for the edge connector seems to make sense though.

You have 1 mm on each side, that makes 2mm.

2 3mm pins on either side. That's 6mm

34 2mm wide pins. Is 68mm.

35 x 0.5 mm spacing between pins = 17.5

2 + 6 + 68 + 17.5 = 93.5mm

I think some other members were working on boards, so if we can get them to pitch in that'd be nice as an extra set of "eyes".

edit: also if I add up your described measurements I get 100.4mm for the board width rather than 100mm?

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 8:01 pm
by Memblers
Yeah, there will always be some kind of radius on the inside corners due to the shape of the cutting tool, despite it being a 90 degree angle in the CAD drawing. My early NES boards I think followed a Nintendo board too closely, and it ends up not fitting well because of that. So I've kept tweaking a bit on every new board.

I'm not sure what's up with my pin measurements, my pins are visibly off-center and I've never moved them because it always works (and seemed to line up visually with other carts). This is what I've got (I'm just skipping over the bigger power pins).
edge to pin 35 center, 5.215mm
edge to pin 2 center, 5.85mm

93.5mm and being centered makes sense, it seems possible that the boards I've compared mine to were within tolerance, rather than being centered. Ultimately, those L-shaped cut-outs are the main part to worry about, and my DXF drawing doesn't even include those (just the bottoms of them).

Board width should be 100mm. I've got 93.6mm + 3.2 + 3.2 = 100mm.

Re: "NES Cartridge dimensions"

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:17 am
by Jeroen
Maybe I'll see if I can desolder and scan an NROM board.

That being said, my pins definitely seem to be centered on my NROM board.