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This is an awesome story! We faced a similar problem trying to locate someone that could manufacture otherwise non-existent parts: a 28-pin card edge Super Nin
by byuu 10y ago
This is an awesome story!
We faced a similar problem trying to locate someone that could manufacture otherwise non-existent parts: a 28-pin card edge Super Nintendo expansion port connector.
The only company we could find that would even consider it wanted $5000-8000 for the initial setup fee, and an MOQ in the thousands. It would have set us back around $15000, but our potential market is maybe 50-100 sales.
In our case, we ended up finding a wider card-edge connector from Samtec for an entirely different application, and we dremeled the connector in half, and then filled the side in with epoxy to create this: http://www.qwertymodo.com/hardware-projects/snes/snes-expansion-port-connector http://www.qwertymodo.com/hardware-projects/snes/snes-expans...
The down-side is, they're not very stable. Sawing them in half and then filling one end with epoxy results in connectors that have mating cycles rated in the hundreds at best before the pins stop making clean connections. It also adds substantially to the workload to hand-dremel the parts. And they're surface-mount, with the tiniest headers you've ever seen, requiring an expert to assemble these boards.
Unfortunately, a group-buy isn't really viable for us. But I'm still hopeful that at some point, we can achieve success with something like the author's attempts at hand-making things with 3D printing and such.
- desdiv 10y agoCould you tell us more about this connector? What's its pitch? What's the PCB thickness? Would something like this[0] work? Hit me up if you guys are interested in getting a small batch of this made. My email is in my profile. [0] http://i.imgur.com/YOHHuRK.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/YOHHuRK.png?1
- byuu 10y agoCertainly! I'd be very interested in purchasing a small batch of these, and would be eternally grateful if you could help us! :D The part we are using now is the Samtec MEC2-(30,40,50)-01-L-DV card edge connector. Here is the high level overview version: http://suddendocs.samtec.com/catalog_english/mec2.pdf http://suddendocs.samtec.com/catalog_english/mec2.pdf Here is the extreme detail version: http://suddendocs.samtec.com/prints/mec2-xx-xx-x-xxx-xx-xx-mkt.pdf http://suddendocs.samtec.com/prints/mec2-xx-xx-x-xxx-xx-xx-m... If I'm reading things right, the pin pitch is 2mm, and the PCB (card) thickness is 1.6mm. But unfortunately I don't have calipers to tell you for certain. I could however get you an SNES deck for analysis ... they're very cheap. I'll send you an e-mail as well, thanks again! I hope we can work something out!
- abakker 10y agoEveryone can have a good set of calipers for around $20 from harbor freight. If you work in any kind of manufacturing hobby, it is worth buying a set.
- desdiv 10y agoI got your introduction email and replied immediately, but didn't hear anything from you after that. Maybe GMail spam filtered my reply to you?