just got some pirate FC carts

[lwizardl]

okay so I bought 4 pirate famicom carts and a NASA games converter. At first I could not get the games to work at all. Being that these are a style of NES carts figured the pins was dirty so I started to open the carts and noticed the pcb seemed to be the wrong direction. All the pictures and videos I see online have the Famicom cart backs facing toward the player. I also noticed that the cases have a cutout that the epoxy blob seemed to be fit for. once I flipped the boards back and cleaned the pins they worked first try.

When it comes to pirate carts is it normal for the pcbs to be flipped the other side? Or was it that I just got carts that someone wanted the faces toward the player?

James

[maxellnormalbias]

I don't own an NES, only a Famicom and a Famiclone, and every pirate cartridge I own works fine without flipping the PCB. However, your Famicom-to-NES converter may require you to insert the cartridge backwards.

[lwizardl]

when I put the game cart in the system I have to put them with them facing down towards the floor, and they work fine. But when I got them in the mail the pcb looked like it was bending after opening then I noticed the blob of epoxy like material was hitting the plastic, after flipping it back the other way the pcb is not bending anymore.

My room lighting sucks so this was the best pictures I could take with my phone.

this is how the pcb was originally sitting


and how I have them now.

[maxellnormalbias]

That's extremely weird... I've never seen a cartridge like that.

[lwizardl]

I was talking to someone on facebook that said that exact same thing. Told me to check on here someone might know what was going on

[maxellnormalbias]

What's the label of the cartridge itself? If it's a well-known pirate that would be even weirder.

[lwizardl]

the ones I have are









Post Merge: January 23, 2015, 10:16:15 pm
the 2 yellow carts have the same pcb and case style. The black one is similar, purple one has a different setup and almost fills the full case

[maxellnormalbias]

Hmmm... Well, they look like your average pirate carts, except for the "juegos nes" one and the black "Super Games"...(What games were on those cartridges, by the way?)

The fact that the yellow ones had the screwed up PCB is actually not that much of a surprise depending on how you bought it.

I consider my self an "Ali Exprexpert", so to speak, and when someone orders a cartridge from a supplier in bulk they get the PCB and label and are supposed to provide their own case. It could be that the person who put this cartridge together did it the wrong way.

[lwizardl]

Juegos cart has
super mario bros, mario bros, a tank game called battle city, racing game called zippy race, road fighter, excite bike, baseball, pinball, mahjong, fire-peacock, thunderbird f-16, zingia, yie ar kungfu, donkey kong 3, galaga, ice climber, pacman, circus charlie, duck hunt, wild gunman.

black super games cart has
tank 90 (same as battle city), f1 race, duck hunt, baseball, super mario, galaxian, clat shoot, circus, baseball. looks like that is where they start to repeat

96 in one has
kung fu,galaxian, pokemon, tennis, legend of kage, battle city, karatrka, and then repeats

142 in one has
90 tank (same again), jewellery, kung fu, star luster, bomber man, space invaders,

[maxellnormalbias]

Although, yeah, to answer the original question, having a pirate cart with a flipped PCB is unusual. But those games look kind of cool, especially the juegos one, cartridges like that are uncommon!

[lwizardl]

very cool to know then, the yellow and black carts are flimsy and feel like you could break them easily. the juegos purple cart on the other hand feels like a thicker plastic.

[jpx72]

On usual oldschool pirates with real chips, all the chips faced towards. Original famicom (except a few) chips face backwards.

To your question, I think its pretty normal that pirate manufacturers do a mistake by flipping the pcb. I also have a few of this kind of pcbs, never know how to put them in. I  killed a few by putting them backwards though...

Also I think the guy who used the FC2NES converter wanted to see the label when playing. You have to put the cartridge backwards in the converter, right? So he flipped the pcbs and problem solved.

[Retrospectives]

If a Chinese retailer orders some PCB-s then he get a DIY kit to assemble, and that goes back to the 80-s. Anyway. The difference between now and then is that nowadays we got these small little glob-top boards that can easily be assembled backwards for someone that doesn't know better. It is not usual, but hey, just turn it around and problem is solved.

[lwizardl]

On usual oldschool pirates with real chips, all the chips faced towards. Original famicom (except a few) chips face backwards.

To your question, I think its pretty normal that pirate manufacturers do a mistake by flipping the pcb. I also have a few of this kind of pcbs, never know how to put them in. I  killed a few by putting them backwards though...

Also I think the guy who used the FC2NES converter wanted to see the label when playing. You have to put the cartridge backwards in the converter, right? So he flipped the pcbs and problem solved.

that was what I didn't want to happen with mine, I remembered the faces was different on the american nes systems, Did not want to kill them

If a Chinese retailer orders some PCB-s then he get a DIY kit to assemble, and that goes back to the 80-s. Anyway. The difference between now and then is that nowadays we got these small little glob-top boards that can easily be assembled backwards for someone that doesn't know better. It is not usual, but hey, just turn it around and problem is solved.

Makes sense if you think about it that way, Yeah I am happen with them now. Lots of crappy games on them, but atleast I expected that lol