Cartridge Modding

[Jayro]

Post your cartridge mods!

Using some light soldering, and a spare GBA SP plastic lens, I managed to make a slimmed down Pokemon Pinball with a blue LED light replacing the rumble motor, and no longer requires a AAA battery in the cartridge.





I also reflash GBC and GBA repro carts with my own homebrew software, and have custom labels made from stickeryou.com:

 

[Jayro]

Just got my stickers in today from Etsy. They're flawless repro stickers. I used Pokemon Ruby bootleg carts for their red shells, and 32MB Kingdom Hearts repro cart PCBs to flash the PC-modded versions of DOOM and DOOM 2 to these carts. (Red blood, PC textures, etc.) They sadly rely on batteries for saving, but I'd be really excited if someone made these ROMs flash-saving compatible.

 

[Jayro]

Made some Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons repros for the GBA from (almost) scratch.




So here's the process of how I made these:

1.) I ordered the cartridges off AliExpress in these colors, as pictured.
2.) I also ordered some Pokemon Emerald repro carts for another project.
3.) The Pokemon Repro carts don't come with a soldered battery, so I swapped the PCB boards from those into the Zelda Oracle shells, and screwed them back together.
4.) I first download and patch the GBC ROMs with the "GBA shop" patch, each. That way the shop in the game that requires a GBA to enter is always open.
5.) After patching the ROMs, I then open up Lesserkuma's Goomba Color fork that has flash saving support, and export the GBC games as GBA ROMs, with proper headers. (AGES and SEASONS, respectively)
6.) I then open up FlashGBX (also by Lesserkuma) and flash the GBA ROMs to the batteryless cartridges using my GBxCart RW v1.3 cartridge flasher (from InsideGadgets.com).
7.) I play test each one, and make sure they save and load the games properly. SUCCESS!

These are for my personal collection, just like the DOOM cartridges I made above. I just really wanted them to last a long time without the need for save batteries. I'm making as many game carts as I can that won't require save batteries for my personal collection, as I really dislike having to replace the batteries in cartridges.

 

[Jayro]

Here is a homebrew cartridge I made that shows different pride and gender flags. Made it using GB Studio 2. Has a holographic sticker label.

I sell it on my Etsy store, and people can request any missing flags they want added at no additional cost.

 

[Jayro]

I make LED-lit cartridges now. Made to order, and just $5 on top of the cartridge price. Works great for both cartridge types.

Shell colors are Clear, Crystal Blue, or Black for GBC, but for GBA I have Clear, Clear Red, Clear Green, and Clear Blue. (Third-gen Pokemon shell colors)

For LED colors I have Red, Green, Blue, White, and Pink.

Pink LEDs look fantastic in the clear shells.