one sec, just gotta grab another root beer.............okay .
Hello to everyone.
This topic will (hopfully) help with the preservation of your cartridge based games.
About 4 days ago i draged out my NES (yay!) but i spent 30 minutes cleaning the contacts on the games.
so as i was leading mario to yet another theatrical death, i was thinking about how the contacts looked. i noticed that there were wear markes from multiple insertions and extractions of the cartridge.i began think about how old the game was and the fact that it has lasted this long. i mean the game is as old as i am and it still works. i figured that the chips and the program would last longer than the contacts so, i decided to either slow or stop the wear on the contacts.i realized that i had only two options, hardwire the cart to the mainboard of the NES or. coat the contacts of the cart with solder. i decided to coat the contacts with solder.
here is what you will need to try this yourself:
A soldering iron, the smaller the tip the better.
Some 60/40 acidcore (self cleaning) solder.this kind of solder has hollow core that is filled with a paste that both cleans and fluxes the surface when heated by the soldering iron.
Any cartridge based game, i STRONGLY suggest that you try this on a spare cart that you don't mind messing up first to get some practice as this will require near perfection.
Some way to secure the circuit board while you work.
A way to remove the screw(s), i did this on a super mario bros NES cart that had screws with flat head slots in them but depending on the age of the cart and the system you may need to modify an old screw driver or buy one that will fit the screw or, you can just bust the cart open (please don't).
Something to smooth/remove the excess solder, i used a narrow flat-head screw driver but you should find what ever works for you but it must be made of metal.
A steady hand and tons of time and patients.
now to take care of the liabilty and legal stuff.
I am not in any way responsable for ANY damages or injuries that you may suffer while preforming this mod.
if you are not sure that you can do this mod safely DON'T DO IT!!!!
this mod uses a soldering iron which gets very hot.please be very careful when useing it.
now that that's over with we can now get started
There won't be any pictures because i don't have a camera.
The trick with this mod is to use as little solder as possible and to make it as smooth and thin as possible.
first,remove the screw(s) that hold the cartridge closed.if you are doing this mod with a GB,GBC or a GBA cart,the front part of the case slides down and lifts up after the screw is removed.next, clean the contacts on the cart. i know i said you should use an acid core solder but the cleaner that the contacts are,the better the solder will stick to the contact. now,secure the circuit board in what ever way works for you but it must be flat.be sure to avoid puting pressure on the chips if you can but if you can't, try to be as gentle as possible.okay now for the fun part, heat a contact with the soldering iron.this should take no more than 10 seconds. if it takes longer than 15 seconds, you may not have it pluged in or turned on .
next, with the soldering iron still on the contact,put a little solder on the tip of the soldering iron making sure that the solder is also touching the contact.wait for 5to 7 seconds for the acid core to clean/flux the contact and then slowly drag the iron over the contact making sure to completly coat the contact.
now, useing which ever tool you chose for this part of the mod, reheat the solder on the contact and when the solder gets soft use the smoothing tool to remove the execces solder and smooth out the thin layer thats left making sure that it is as thin and smooth as possible. the reason you only want a thin layer of solder is because by adding the solder to the contacts you are incressing the thickness of the contact. so the thinner the layer of solder the better.now that you've gotten a contact done you can do the rest the same way but be carefull,when i did this i had some trouble with the solder bleeding to the previous contact so have some patience.
i had at tough time with this mod because i wasn't sure about how to go about it so if anyone finds a better way of doing this mod feel free to post it. after i got done i had to file down my solder because i had to many lumps and rough spots but it worked. i hope you have better luck than i had
have fun .