Hacking DIY Flashcarts

[FarrisGoldstein]

Pardon me if this is a silly question, I'm new here: Has there been any effort to put together a DIY flashcart project for those of us who have the requisite skills & equipment?

For instance:

- Reverse-engineer or design the circuit
- Etch, drill, and populate the PCB
- 3d print the plastic shell

 

[lukas_2511]

It's probably just not worth the effort... you'd probably need a reasonable sized FPGA (quite expensive) for getting the timing just right, and you'd need hours to weeks of development for the "firmware" to work as intended (+ general pcb work)... just buy an existing flashcard, it won't be much more expensive, but will at least spare you weeks of frustration.

 

[thorasgar]

We like to play games.

 

[FarrisGoldstein]

lukas_2511: I would argue that "not worth the effort" is highly subjective, but thorasgar's comment seems to back you up quite nicely.

Now to go try once again to wade through the scary dead threads to find a decent place to buy carts.

 

[gamesquest1]

if you intend to sell them it might be worth the effort....but for just making one for yourself you would probably be better off just buying one, parts aren't too cheap when your buying in small numbers, you would probably end up paying more in parts (or pretty much the same) than a ready made flashcard would cost.......not to mention you would need to develop all the software, and if you can do that, you could just bypass the need for a physical card in the first place

 

[sychotix]

lukas_2511: I would argue that "not worth the effort" is highly subjective, but thorasgar's comment seems to back you up quite nicely.

Now to go try once again to wade through the scary dead threads to find a decent place to buy carts.

I did the same. Bought one off RHS for ~60 bucks, but the order got canceled =/
If you are getting a gateway, check http://www.gateway-3ds.com/resellers/
I just bought one from 3dsgamerworld for ~$67.99 + 2.50 shipping. Seems to be about the same price everywhere except one Chinese(?) shop that people mentioned where it was 60, but very long shipping. Can't seem to find it on the resellers list.

 

[thorasgar]

Modchipdirect worked well for me. Ordered on a Friday had it on Tuesday.

 

[FarrisGoldstein]

if you intend to sell them it might be worth the effort....

Makers often spend far more money building things than it would have been just to buy one off the shelf.

 

[Veho]

if you intend to sell them it might be worth the effort....but for just making one for yourself you would probably be better off just buying one, parts aren't too cheap when your buying in small numbers, you would probably end up paying more in parts (or pretty much the same) than a ready made flashcard would cost.......not to mention you would need to develop all the software, and if you can do that, you could just bypass the need for a physical card in the first place

But if you're doing it as a hobby it's an interesting project that can teach you more about electronics, manufacturing, hardware, 3DS hacking, and it lets you add custom extras that existing flashcards don't have, like a GPS receiver chip like that one DS card a while ago. I seem to recall a few homemade DS flashcard projects even at a time when R4 clones were $5. It's not about paying less. Look at the Raspberry Pi mobile phone. You could buy a much better phone for the price of the components but this way you get to build and program your own phone from more or less scratch and you get to learn a lot.

In college we had to build an mp3 player out of a microcontroller and basic components for a class on computer architecture. It was the size of a desk

 

[gamesquest1]

But if you're doing it as a hobby it's an interesting project that can teach you more about electronics, manufacturing, hardware, 3DS hacking, and it lets you add custom extras that existing flashcards don't have, like a GPS receiver chip like that one DS card a while ago. I seem to recall a few homemade DS flashcard projects even at a time when R4 clones were $5. It's not about paying less. Look at the Raspberry Pi mobile phone. You could buy a much better phone for the price of the components but this way you get to build and program your own phone from more or less scratch and you get to learn a lot.

In college we had to build an mp3 player out of a microcontroller and basic components for a class on computer architecture. It was the size of a desk

oh i completely understand that, i build my own stuff quite a bit for fun/projects, obviously anyone who really wants to make their own flashcard is more than free to, but i'm just making sure the OP isnt one of those people who thinks it would be a easy/cheap thing to do, a lot of the time on the internet people assume a lot and think things are easier than they are......hence the existence of all the "why is the xboxone not hacked yet", "where is our free 3DS cfw" threads

of course its possible, but the question is to what end,if its for fun/hobby and you realize you would more than likely be spending a quite a bit of time and money on it, sure have fun and good luck.

 

[gamesquest1]

*double post*

 

[tony_2018]

Pardon me if this is a silly question, I'm new here: Has there been any effort to put together a DIY flashcart project for those of us who have the requisite skills & equipment?

For instance:

- Reverse-engineer or design the circuit
- Etch, drill, and populate the PCB
- 3d print the plastic shell

No team is going to release this info as they design it themselves and had a manufacturing company to produce it. If you have the skills than why not do the same as these teams did?

 

[ody81]

Gimme a schematic and I'll make it

I learnt how to etch watching old boys making packet modems back in the day.

BUT, I'm no engineer, so gimme the schematic first lol
Something to burn on it wouldn't go astray either
I'd say that'd be the sticking point on a fun project like this, software!

 

[gamesquest1]

Gimme a schematic and I'll make it

I learnt how to etch watching old boys making packet modems back in the day.

BUT, I'm no engineer, so gimme the schematic first lol
Something to burn on it wouldn't go astray either
I'd say that'd be the sticking point on a fun project like this, software!

yeah, that's it, the actual putting the card together is the easy part (i say from a hardware guys perspective), if you want a project like this, i would say you would want a completely custom made launcher, with unique abilities to make the time and effort worth it, i understand it all from a hobbyists point of view, but a lot of people would look at it and think its a cheap alternative...which wouldn't really be true unless your ordering thousands of components to get the prices right down, but its not that common to have a hardware and software guy....most of the time its one or the other with a basic knowledge in the other side of things, to pull something like this off you would probably need a small team of people, one for the software side of thing, and one for hardware design....could be quite a fun project, but that's really all it would be unless your planning to go into the flashcard business and make all the effort pay off

but yeah with the 3DS, software is everything, the hardware is little more than a DRM dongle with added storage ....unless ofc, the OP means he wants to build a sky3ds style flashcard,in which case the card is more important than gateway style cards and is actually really required

 

[ody81]

yeah, that's it, the actual putting the card together is the easy part (i say from a hardware guys perspective), if you want a project like this, i would say you would want a completely custom made launcher, with unique abilities to make the time and effort worth it, i understand it all from a hobbyists point of view, but a lot of people would look at it and think its a cheap alternative...which wouldn't really be true unless your ordering thousands of components to get the prices right down, but its not that common to have a hardware and software guy....most of the time its one or the other with a basic knowledge in the other side of things, to pull something like this off you would probably need a small team of people, one for the software side of thing, and one for hardware design....could be quite a fun project, but that's really all it would be unless your planning to go into the flashcard business and make all the effort pay off

but yeah with the 3DS, software is everything, the hardware is little more than a DRM dongle with added storage ....unless ofc, the OP means he wants to build a sky3ds style flashcard,in which case the card is more important than gateway style cards and is actually really required

Makes you wish ham radio guys got into 3ds tinkering yeah?
Those guys are about as dedicated as you can get for hobbyists.
This'd be done by now lol.

Anyhow, It'd be great fun (from a hardware guy also) and it'd also be the world's first (? citation needed) community flashcart.

What you'd need is yup, a software guy.
And there'd be zero point in cloning a GW cart or even tweaking the firmware, it'd be a much better plan to use cheap as you can get (for the most part) parts and custom software.
There's a million hardware guys that could design a simpe-ish schematic, and might not even mind. But the software/firmware scene on the 3ds SUUUUUCKKSS lol. Too many personal morals, politics, #don'twannagetsued, blah blah blah.

One of those things I guess. If people could work together the world would be a lot different today, that's for sure.

Cool idea though, even for a dream.