Did I bust my cartridge reader?

[petran1420]

I had my project 'mostly' up and running, but I had to reopen it to fix the external usb port, which was shorting. The good news is I fixed the usb, but the bad news is some of the wires from the cartridge reader came undone, and I had to resolder them. Long story short, during this adventure one of the pins broke off: http://imgur.com/a/GNHXW (2nd pic).

This was one of the 'every other' pins that wasnt technically needed for the prerunnerseth cartridge pcb to work, but now the cartridge reader wont work. I don't think im even getting a green light from the pi when I turn on the switch.

Everything worked peachy fine before I messed this up, and it still works when I put the sd directly into the pi. I don't know enough about the hardware to know: did I break the cartridge reader permanently, or can this be fixed? Do I just have bad connections now that can be cleaned up? I hope thats the case, because getting that cartridge reader out of the case is going to be a bear, I used a lot of hot glue...

[Lpoolm]

Hi, I don't know enough about the prerunnerseth cartridge so maybe this is not an option but could you not solder to another pin on the cartridge reader and match that to the pin within the prerunnerseth cartridge? Unless it only has 8 options already in there that is?

[WoodMill]

From my experience, and from what I've seen from a couple others, the PRS cart is very finicky with its placement when inserted. Mine will only work if one side of the cart is pulled out a micro-mm.

My suggestion, and this will seem like a pain, but pull out, and reinsert the cart differently each time. Power on, wait, and power off if you don't see anything on screen. Then pull out the cart, reinsert pushing on only one side of the cart. Repeat. Push down on the other side of the cart. Etc, and so on.

Mine works when I insert the cart, while only pressing the cart in from the side of the power switch. Once it doesn't move, I don't go to the other side of the cart to make sure it's all the way pressed in. I just leave it. And it works.

[petran1420]

Mine works when I insert the cart, while only pressing the cart in from the side of the power switch. Once it doesn't move, I don't go to the other side of the cart to make sure it's all the way pressed in. I just leave it. And it works.

Thanks for the suggestion! This sounds a little finnicky though - does the pi ever reset or turn off if it gets jolted around a bit?

[petran1420]

Update - I bought a new cartridge reader, used 30 gauge wires to keep them from smashing into each other and was very careful when rewiring everything back up, and now we're back in business! I think the old reader was just too damaged.

[marketus]

I used like 2 pins in the reader for each connection, that's why I didn't use adjacent pins in the gameboy cartridge, I hope that's not why it doesn't work

[petran1420]

I used like 2 pins in the reader for each connection, that's why I didn't use adjacent pins in the gameboy cartridge, I hope that's not why it doesn't work

I think i've seen others bridge 2 pins together and then solder into that and it worked fine, not sure the theory behind it.