best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?

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best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#117456)
The official solderable SNES connectors are a rarity.
I salvaged some accurate ones from a Tototek T-Connector; I would buy more, however the T-Connectors are now using an imperfect-fitting cartridge slot (looks hand-cut, I've read a tototek forum post about needing to adjust the cart in this slot).

Is there a substitute that fits like a glove?
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#117458)
Tyco Electronics has one. The pitch doesn't match, so it's tricky to line up the expansion pins, but it works great for normal carts, and it CAN work for expansion carts, it's just tricky.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#117466)
Try and find some non working or broken copiers, like a Bung Doctor SF3 or similar. They all contain 2 pin connectors that fit nicely and allow for expansion.

Just need to desolder them from the main board, which is pretty easy with a heat gun.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#117467)
I saw a Bung Doctor SF2/3 in a dream I had last night.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#117606)
It's also easy to find broken clone consoles to scavenge the connector from cheaply, such as the Yobo FC Twin. That system's connector has all pins present (for Super FX games) and mounting holes which was a nice surprise. Not great quality, but easily available and not hard to desolder.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#118131)
qwertymodo wrote:
Tyco Electronics has one. The pitch doesn't match, so it's tricky to line up the expansion pins, but it works great for normal carts, and it CAN work for expansion carts, it's just tricky.


Qwerty I sampled some of these from TE, and I received them a few days ago. I don't like the looks of it. Even for a non-expansion cartridge the pitch is off enough so that one pin may practically not touch the cart conductor surface. I know you've said you used them, however I don't like what I am looking at. I wonder that there are sockets out there with a more perfectly matched pitch?

Does anyone know the pitch of the actual Conductor Pads of a SNES Cart? Any differences in the jump from the middle section to the 2 Expansion sections (the gap), or does it maintain the same pitch? I actually don't have accurate measuring tools for this at home.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#118134)
I just picked up my copy of Yoshi's Island and measured: it definitely seems to be constant pitch across the notches (with 2 missing contacts). My calipers agree with what nocash says: 2.5mm pitch and 1.2mm PCB thickness.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#118140)
The notches are following the 2.5mm grid, too? Yes, looks like so: Each notch equals to 2 missing pins (or 4 missing pins for both notches).
If you feel like slaughtering hardware: SNES PAL/NTSC/EUR/US/JP region adaptors might be also a good choice (they do usually even have 2 cartridge slots, I have a WINGS adaptor around with 2 slots and full pinouts, but that may vary from adaptor to adaptor).
Outside of the SNES (and NES) world, 2.5mm should be hard to find, most normal connectors (like ISA-bus) are using 2.54mm pitch.
Re: best 62-pin Female Cart Connector Substitute?
by on (#118174)
bazz wrote:
qwertymodo wrote:
Tyco Electronics has one. The pitch doesn't match, so it's tricky to line up the expansion pins, but it works great for normal carts, and it CAN work for expansion carts, it's just tricky.


Qwerty I sampled some of these from TE, and I received them a few days ago. I don't like the looks of it. Even for a non-expansion cartridge the pitch is off enough so that one pin may practically not touch the cart conductor surface. I know you've said you used them, however I don't like what I am looking at. I wonder that there are sockets out there with a more perfectly matched pitch?

Does anyone know the pitch of the actual Conductor Pads of a SNES Cart? Any differences in the jump from the middle section to the 2 Expansion sections (the gap), or does it maintain the same pitch? I actually don't have accurate measuring tools for this at home.


The correct pitch is 2.50mm, the socket I linked is 2.54mm. By the time you get to the edge of the socket, you end up with 0.68mm offset, which, while not insignificant, also isn't actually problematic if the cart is centered. Or, if you're not concerned with the expansion pins it's only 0.44mm offset at the very edge of the main set of contacts, which is basically 99% guaranteed to still line up fine for all of the pins. Yes, it gets close the further out to the edge you get, but it is possible to insert a cart and have every pin make contact with 0 shorts, I've tested that and confirmed it several times. Also, I've never had a single problem with a normal cart, haven't really tested with an expansion cart other than SMRPG, which hasn't worked, but I suspect that has more to do with the SA-1 CIC than the socket. If in doubt, slide the cart so that the edge with pin 1 is pressed tightly to the edge of the socket, since IIRC the only signals they actually used on the cart expansion pins were the 21.477MHz cklock signal, /WRAM, and REFRESH, all of which are on the same side. There isn't much harm in shorting the expansion address pins together, or shorting them to the audio pins, since the address lines are open drain.

That really is the best socket you're going to find currently in production, I've looked high and low, and 2.50mm pitch just isn't something you can get your hands on. So, as others have mentioned, your best bet may be a clone console, or a dead console (that's what I'm going to be using once I finalize my wire-wrapped hardware design and get around to redoing it on a PCB, Ebay has a lot of dead SNES consoles pretty cheap).