Has anybody ever bought one of these? Does it work?

http://mcm.newark.com/NewarkWebComme...jsp?id=83-3785

Thanks in advance.

I haven't myself as I own a top loader, but I have heard these things essentially revive dead Nintendos.

Mmm.. 8-Bits.

I bought one from http://www.mcmelectronics.com/. It works great. I will soon be buying a new SNES connector.

I'd also recommend buying a 3.8 MM security screw driver bit and cleaning all your games with an eraser.

Yeah, they work great, and are very easy to install. Make sure you clean the carts too or else you'll just dirty up the new connecter very quickly.

How would you go about cleaning the games? Besides opening them and cleaning with an eraser. Just using rubbing alcohol on a q-tip works well right? That's what I have been doing, however, my new connector doesn't seem to work as well as it used to.

Most of the replacement connectors I've used don't last very long. I would buy a few at a time, and make sure to clean your games regularly (the alcohol and q-tip works fine). I play a lot of NES, though, so my connectors get quite a bit of use. I just wouldn't expect the connector to last as long as your NES did when you were a kid.

I bought one off Ebay 2 years ago. Couldn't recommend it more. I havn't had a single blinking screen since.

I've actually heard the ones you can buy now are of higher quality than the ones originally in the NES.

I also got one off Ebay two years ago and it was the best thing for my (now) 2nd NES. I highly recommend getting one.

For cleaning they still off NES cart cleaning kits. I believe I picked mine up at Gamestop for a few bucks. Basically a solution, with a tool designed for a NES cart.

I still need to take a picture of the NES I painted black, put a blue LED in it, and stood it on it's side.

Now THAT one could seriously use a new connector.

I got on this NES craze about a year ago, and was trying to buy every game they ever made. I made it to about 300 and then realized there's just too many games and some of them are real hard to find. Maybe I'll start it up again in the future.


I bought one of those connectors. It worked OK. But then I realized, the reason that my old one wasn't working well was because all the pins had bent down too far over time and were not making a good connection anymore with the cartridges (plus the games were incredibly dirty). So I took a tiny jewelers screwdriver and bent all the connectors back up. Now the old one works just as well as the new one.

The BIGGEST thing about getting the games to work is to make sure they are *CLEAN*. That's probably 95% of the problem. Almost all of the "gold" connectors on the games I bought were black and nasty. I mean really nasty. Some of them were even rusty. You can't see how dirty they really are unless you take the cartridge apart and get a good look at it in the light. You'll need the 3.8mm security screwdriver bit (there's plenty of them on ebay) to take the cartridges apart. Then you'll be able to thoroughly clean the connectors. I've found that using erasors and q-tips and rubbing alchohol isn't very effective if you take the games apart and try to clean them that way. It may work temporarily, but you'll have to keep doing that. The way I cleaned my games was to use "NEVR-DULL". It's a wadding polish. Just rub that stuff on the connectors, and then use a rag to wipe it off. The connectors look better than new. Shiny, shiny gold. It's like magic. I wish I had a before and after photo of some the games I've cleaned. Big difference. It was a lot of work, but I wanted to make sure everyting looked and worked perfect, and it does.

19K, thanks for the great advice. I've got a collection going, always buying a random game every other week or so, and it's nice to know how to keep everything in great condition.

As a matter of fact, I just got a new NES Advantage last night!!

Pixy,

I also have a method of removing permanent marker, in case you come across any games that have been written on. Get some fast orange hand cleaner and rub that into the marker. Just be careful because if you rub too hard, you'll get a smooth, dull gray spot on the cartridge. Works best on smaller markings. I bought a bunch of NES lots on ebay and most of the time the games had someone's name written all over it.


Maybe someday I'll start my collection up again. I was getting really serious about it... to the point where I was getting rid of games that had tiny rips in the labels and buying another copy that was in better condition. It took up a lot of my time and money.

How difficult is it to put it in?

Fast Orange hand cleaner? I assume that's a brand name? EXCELLENT tip!! I also have a few carts with perm. marker names on them (a couple of my own name even, I regret now!)..

I know how you feel about the pickiness.. when I buy older NES and SNES games they have to be in good condition, labels HAVE to be nice condition. It's such a shame that so many boxes and manuals were trashed from those days, thanks in big help to places like Funcoland. I was appalled when I found out if you sold them a game complete they would throw away all but the cartridge. Luckily with CD/DVD cases, they don't do that anymore.

I'll applaud you on the collection, my friend had a collection of 400 NES games but recently sold them because he said it felt like an obligation more than a hobby anymore (moron!).. he wouldn't even let me pick out ones I wanted before he put them on eBay!! I myself am pretty modest, maybe 20-30 NES games, but I do have all 4 Dragon Warriors and those are the most important to me. I'd love to have a complete Metroid though.. both versions of the box even (Yes, I am a Metroid WHORE).

Huh, huh.. dude if you have to ask you'll never know. Hehe heh hehe!!

LOL!



The 72-pin connector is fairly simple to install, all that really holds it on are 4 crosspoint screws and it slides off the back of the circuit board.

Just remember to take note of where the screws go when taking apart the system and removing the shielding. I suggest getting a thing piece of styrofoam and pushing the screws into it in the same pattern as they are on/in the system.