Gaming Preserving and Repairing of Ds Games ( Pokemon Distrubion Cards )

[SirKelly]

I got my hands on some field destroyed Pokemon Distribution Cards some of them got there Chips destroyed but some of them just got there pins destroyed so I was wondering it it would be possible to solder the chips of the old cards to solder them to a Working Card ? ( An if somebody can do that please write down here and let me know Id love to save those Cards )

 

[tntmod54321]

I would STRONGLY advise against desoldering the chip, what do you mean by repair?
Dump the rom? restore the card to working order?

EDIT: To clarify, I would strongly advise againt desoldering the chip because those pins are TINY, and unless you have one of those fancy soldering microscopes i doubt you could do it, and that's not even considering that different ds cards might have different internals.

 

[SirKelly]

I would STRONGLY advise against desoldering the chip, what do you mean by repair?
Dump the rom? restore the card to working order?

EDIT: To clarify, I would strongly advise againt desoldering the chip because those pins are TINY, and unless you have one of those fancy soldering microscopes i doubt you could do it, and that's not even considering that different ds cards might have different internals.

Okay thank you for the Tip I mean Repair on the sence that I opend every card up often thrown away the old "Shell" ( As theye were cut and bent ) pelled the store and DS Cart Sticker off toke a Brain age card ( For the shell ) and put it into there replacing the sticker and before hand checking if all the connections on the DS card go through to the Memory chip on the Board if not looking for a point to solder a small jumper wire there then trying it out ( Fried 1 2ds system with it and took out something of the motherboard of another 2ds as all the colors are super dark now ) and if its works again put it back into his new shell and Dump the conntent ( Even though the ones I got have allready been Dumpelt multible times on the Internet ) This was I repaired 3 Pichu / Jirachi Event Cards a Arceus Event Card a Ash Pikachu Event Card and a Zoroak Event Card but I have some boards where are peices missing while I have other where the memory chips are destroyed thats why I was thinking about maybe beeing able to use another cards board for the chip on the defective board ( as you are right and the Event Cards have a way different board with no "Lock out chip" thingy on the top like all the other cards normally have ) and Im just trying to Preserve the game Cartridges as they wouldnt have never been repaired or even thrown out

 

[tntmod54321]

OK so first of all are these games "normal" DS or 3DS carts? Also, what's wrong with these carts? (Besides the shell obviously) Are the contacts worn down? Is the board fried?

 

[FAST6191]

Do you have any pictures? That would likely help things here.

If you mean the pins on the game cart were damaged (scraped with a screwdriver or something) then yes, a few people have soldered things on from other carts (or made a PCB) to get things working again.

If you mean pins on the chip inside the cart (as opposed to the chip itself having something driven through it) then there are methods there, however they are a pain on bigger devices (if you want to go back to the wii then see mod chipping a cut pins d2b chip) and smaller ones like that are not fun at all.

 

[SirKelly]

OK so first of all are these games "normal" DS or 3DS carts? Also, what's wrong with these carts? (Besides the shell obviously) Are the contacts worn down? Is the board fried?

Its a special Card even for a DS Card and no the problem is that they got "Field Destroyed" So somebody took a Tongs to that thing and went wild and well some of them arent saveavle at all but there memory chip is still good

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Do you have any pictures? That would likely help things here.

If you mean the pins on the game cart were damaged (scraped with a screwdriver or something) then yes, a few people have soldered things on from other carts (or made a PCB) to get things working again.

If you mean pins on the chip inside the cart (as opposed to the chip itself having something driven through it) then there are methods there, however they are a pain on bigger devices (if you want to go back to the wii then see mod chipping a cut pins d2b chip) and smaller ones like that are not fun at all.

Well its about the Pins that conect to the DS but Id want to save the chip from a non saveable pcb and "Recreate" the card with the original memory chip

 

[FAST6191]

That is less broken pins and more someone took a set of pliers and twisted in the middle. Got it a bit closer to the chip than going along the line of the pins.

As it is just a single chip board, said chip being of modest pin pitch, with a couple of capacitors you only want to dump I would sooner recreate the PCB. However that would probably require someone with some actual soldering gear where what I cover in a second could be done more modestly, though someone with soldering gear could also do well there

You probably could still fly wires from the remaining pins or pins on the chip to another board or something like

at the same time you would want to bypass with a jumper wire on top or repair the connection on the back (just the one that presumably powers those capacitors, the other stuff is intact or just a large ground plane. It does not look like a multi layer board but I have been wrong in the past.

 

[SirKelly]

That is less broken pins and more someone took a set of pliers and twisted in the middle. Got it a bit closer to the chip than going along the line of the pins.

As it is just a single chip board, said chip being of modest pin pitch, with a couple of capacitors you only want to dump I would sooner recreate the PCB. However that would probably require someone with some actual soldering gear where what I cover in a second could be done more modestly, though someone with soldering gear could also do well there

You probably could still fly wires from the remaining pins or pins on the chip to another board or something like
View attachment 91920
at the same time you would want to bypass with a jumper wire on top or repair the connection on the back (just the one that presumably powers those capacitors, the other stuff is intact or just a large ground plane. It does not look like a multi layer board but I have been wrong in the past.

To my nolage there are 14 Pins on the Chip that go to the Pins on the pcb that connect to the Ds and its infact a single layer board I have repaired other ones with jumper wires allready but the problem Im facing is thatg I have some where chuncks of the Pcb are missing ( At the part where they should connect to the DS ) and yeah most of it is ground but I have some where the pcb is beyond savavle and have some pcbs ( of other pokemon distibution cards ) that have broken chips but the traces all work fine besides that now the Problem Im facing is that I only started soldering like 2 weeks ago and I only own like a 3 Bucks soldering Iron with a GIGANTIC tip so I dont feel up to the task just yet but would still love to have it repaired and Preserved for generations to come and what are the pictures supos to mean ?

 

[FAST6191]

Technically it is a double sided board (important to note that if you are getting a quote, as any schoolboy can make a single layer single sided board but single layer double sided takes a bit more), and it seems all pins that are not used are grounded (I don't know if floating pins there will trouble things so they will also want to be grounded and that makes things harder).

The picture is of a blaze 3 in 1 game selector for the DS. Most people that wanted multiple games got a flash cart but that is a device with 3 game slots and a switch you use to toggle between them. I like them because they allow you to expose pins to read with an oscilloscope, program with something external or otherwise do something. With one of those you can solder wires directly to the selector rather than messing around trying to cram it back into a case.

Equally cheap soldering irons can be not so fun to use but you can get a lot done with one. You might want to look up something called drag soldering -- you don't have to solder each individual pin if there is a soldermask to hopefully stop globs of solder always bridging things. Practice this on something else first though.

If you have an existing board of the same design but with a bad chip then that is even better. Hopefully you can transplant a working chip board to that instead.

When you say chunks of the PCB are missing has it changed since that picture then? Everything there looks pretty intact, and if it is not there it is obvious where a trace would have gone.

 

[SirKelly]

Technically it is a double sided board (important to note that if you are getting a quote, as any schoolboy can make a single layer single sided board but single layer double sided takes a bit more), and it seems all pins that are not used are grounded (I don't know if floating pins there will trouble things so they will also want to be grounded and that makes things harder).

The picture is of a blaze 3 in 1 game selector for the DS. Most people that wanted multiple games got a flash cart but that is a device with 3 game slots and a switch you use to toggle between them. I like them because they allow you to expose pins to read with an oscilloscope, program with something external or otherwise do something. With one of those you can solder wires directly to the selector rather than messing around trying to cram it back into a case.

Equally cheap soldering irons can be not so fun to use but you can get a lot done with one. You might want to look up something called drag soldering -- you don't have to solder each individual pin if there is a soldermask to hopefully stop globs of solder always bridging things. Practice this on something else first though.

If you have an existing board of the same design but with a bad chip then that is even better. Hopefully you can transplant a working chip board to that instead.

When you say chunks of the PCB are missing has it changed since that picture then? Everything there looks pretty intact, and if it is not there it is obvious where a trace would have gone.

Ohhh yeah that makes sence and Im not to sure eigther if every pin needs to be grounded the Blaze game selector thing sounds Great Ill buy one and I have been trying to figure out every pin on the pcb ( the ds connection thingy ) with the chip pins and now I made like a plan to know which pin corospons with the other pin ( Pcb and chip ) and yeah IO hope so too but its really really small for such a big soldering Iron ( Tip ) and yeah I dont have a picture of it right now but I mean it looks like ripped off ( As those not so easyly fixable cards I put into storage ) But its like missing a real piece down at the connection between the ds and game