Snes cart molds?

[fastbilly1]

If you are going to cast them yourself, look up slush casting. Its how many prop makers make their props, and how they make hollow chocolate candy. It leaves you with a strong outer shell and nothing on the inside. If I was going to hand cast cases, I would make a mold for a dozen or so and slush cast it once a day until the mold died. Heck, once I get my workshop setup, I might just do that.

[sonic2041]

Injection molding would be the way to go for the best quality. I'm not sure how much it would cost, but I'm sure your initial investment won't be cheap.

There are a lot of things to consider when doing injection molding. The first thing that has to be done is to design a mold, that will get cut in to metal using CNC. This isn't as simple as drawing the cart and reversing it into a mold. You will have to place your injection points so that the mold is entirely filled, and that it cools at an even rate. All these things are effected by the type of plastic being used.

If the plastic does not cool evenly, parts of the cart will shrink more than others. Even with even shrinking, you have to design your mold to compensate for this otherwise the board might not fit inside the cart right.

Setting up this whole process will usually require hours of simulation, but if you don't consider everything above the end product will be a disaster.

I would consider how much you could make off of replacement carts, and how many you could possible sell. Remember that you prices will have to compete with cheap sports games. I think this route would have a lot of upfront cost, because you would have to get thousands made for it to be priced right.

I've never contracted out anything to be injection molded so I don't know the exact cost, so I'm interested to hear what they say.

Edit:

http://www.retrousb.com/index.php?cPath ... b081b9cdf6

The carts they use for their repros are probably injection molded, although they are PAL/JAP size. I may have seen some similar US sized carts somewhere. Maybe you could contact them to see how they got those made.

[ASkalking]

Some guy named Pachichi or something over at Nintendo Age spent money on a mold and sell the shell for 6$ if I remember. Now, since no PCB are available to produce you'll still need to destroy sport games.

[bdlou]

Some guy named Pachichi or something over at Nintendo Age spent money on a mold and sell the shell for 6$ if I remember. Now, since no PCB are available to produce you'll still need to destroy sport games.

Yeah, what's the story with this? I swear RetroUSB started selling PCBs that fit SNES shells and took standard EEPROMs, but they seem to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

[getafixx]

Some guy named Pachichi or something over at Nintendo Age spent money on a mold and sell the shell for 6$ if I remember. Now, since no PCB are available to produce you'll still need to destroy sport games.

Yeah I found out about that after I started this thread. I bought a couple from him (they havent arrived yet) to see how they look. If they fit the bill, I'd rather order from him! That would save on all the start up costs

As for RetroUSB, yeah i heard that they did at one point. I wish he would bring them back, it would be awesome to make your own repros using all-new parts

[ac_90]

there's companies out there that will 3D print plastic parts for consumers; maybe give them a google! you could make them alternate colours or have them with different designs depending on how you replicate the cartridge shape on a 3D cad program; could be a really cool hobby project!

[fastbilly1]

Some guy named Pachichi or something over at Nintendo Age spent money on a mold and sell the shell for 6$ if I remember. Now, since no PCB are available to produce you'll still need to destroy sport games.

Yeah I found out about that after I started this thread. I bought a couple from him (they havent arrived yet) to see how they look. If they fit the bill, I'd rather order from him! That would save on all the start up costs

As for RetroUSB, yeah i heard that they did at one point. I wish he would bring them back, it would be awesome to make your own repros using all-new parts

Bunnyboy, the guy who is RetroUSB, announced recently that he is moving to almost completely NES based works going forward.

[CRTGAMER]

Thats what I want to avoid for two reasons:

1) People usually dont give a shit about those games, so they tend to be in awful physical shape (yellowed, cracked, covered in an unknown sticky substance...)

2) Regardless if the game sucks or not, I'd still rather have a quality replacement shell that can be used instead of taking it from another game.

There are always stacks of Sports Games at the Swap Meet and Thrift Stores. Bound to be some with decent shells which is cheaper then getting the custom mold. Look at it this way, at least the shell of that unwanted sports game is put to use again.