Hey guys, I was doing some cart cleaning and case swapping last night, and I noticed that on "some" Super FX carts, there is a little metal pin that is layed into the plastic of the cart and not attached to the PCB at all, other than by physical touch.
Not every cart with the 3 PCB fingers (out the bottom of the cart, where it plugs into the SNES) has this little metal pin. So far I've noticed that all of the Super FX games that I have, has this pin. However, not all of the 3 PCB fingered games have it, and not all of the Super FX games have it.
I was going to swap the back of an old Dirt Track FX cart for my dinged up Mega Man X2 cart, and the FX cart has the metal pin, and Mega Man does not.
Does anyone know what this pin does? Does it provide auxiliary power to the cartridge for Super FX games? Is it simply a ground? If it's power, why don't the more powerful games (Mega Man X2, X3, Super Mario World 2) have it?
Anyone got any input? If this is fuzzy, I'd be happy to post a picture about what I'm talking about.
SNES cart pinout - Kind of - Question
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Re: SNES cart pinout - Kind of - Question
My guess would be it's an extra ground.
But I'm sure it's covered somewhere.
But I'm sure it's covered somewhere.
Re: SNES cart pinout - Kind of - Question
^
agreed, but I searched the interwebs for hours last night, and couldn't find anything at all about it.
It's a pain in the ass to remove it and add it to another plastic shell, and I guess my overall question was, how important is it, and would it negatively affect a cart that wasn't meant to have it? For the record, the Mega Man cart that didn't have the extra pin in the cartridge, still has the "pad" etched into the PCB for it to connect to..... So if it were present, it deffinitely would do something. But again, I can't find anything at all about it on the webz.
Was kinda hoping some Racketboy member knows whats up. Also, this board shows up in Google searches, so if someone searches in the future, they'll come across this topic.
agreed, but I searched the interwebs for hours last night, and couldn't find anything at all about it.
It's a pain in the ass to remove it and add it to another plastic shell, and I guess my overall question was, how important is it, and would it negatively affect a cart that wasn't meant to have it? For the record, the Mega Man cart that didn't have the extra pin in the cartridge, still has the "pad" etched into the PCB for it to connect to..... So if it were present, it deffinitely would do something. But again, I can't find anything at all about it on the webz.
Was kinda hoping some Racketboy member knows whats up. Also, this board shows up in Google searches, so if someone searches in the future, they'll come across this topic.
Re: SNES cart pinout - Kind of - Question
Here is a thread I made on Nintendo-Age asking about this. I was asking if there was supposed to me one pin or two. My game only had one, yet the plastic shell had slots for two.
It's an extra ground.
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messagevie ... adid=50402
Here is a photo:
It's an extra ground.
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messagevie ... adid=50402
Here is a photo:
Selling half my NES/SNES/PS1 collection (ending Dec 1):
http://tinyurl.com/zingebay
http://tinyurl.com/zingebay