Retrode Virtual Boy adapter build #1

Posted 12 years ago

I have finally started to work on the nice looking, easily usable adapter.

First thing was to somehow make a socket for the Virtual Boy cartridges, something sturdy that you can just push the cartridge onto, rather than have to insert individual pins each time. I have had this in mind for a while now, trying various bits to see if they fit or not. I finally came up with something suitable. the pitch for a 2.5" HDD is the same as it is for the Virtual Boy, but unfortunately, the pin size is too big. I managed to find a couple of sockets that connect a 2.5" HDD to a laptop main board, these looked perfect.

I was able to push the pins from a PCMCIA socket through this HDD socket and then solder them in place from the back, leaving a convenient pad to solder the wires to later. I then glued them together so that there was the full 60 pins needed (I will use the extra bits at the sides to fix it in place).

I cleaned the sticker off my donor Mega Drive cartridge too, ready to make some cuts, hopefully, it will look quite neat when it is finished.