Problem with SD cartridge mod using prerunnerseth's PCB

[Joery]

Here's an update: I managed to get it booted even all the way up to the screen of retropie asking for input controls. What I did is resolder all points again on the RP0 and shortened the exposed part of the electrical wires. This gave me boot success. However, the booting is very inconsistent and often gives disk errors or FAILED starting of services and occasionally just stalls. Anyone an idea what could cause that?

[Joery]

It finally works! It seems the alignment of the pins are indeed a bit off between the nds lite gba cartridge reader and the cartridge containing PRS-tech pcb+micro sd. Thanks for all the help!

[PIXeL_92]

I am having the exact same problem with mine,



I have wasted an Cart reader

It worked before I glued the cart reader in and then once I had glued it I couldn't get it to boot.

No glue got into the cart reader or onto the SD board.

Tried all of the follwoing;

Wiring is correct
No shorting
Continuity on all Pads to cart reader
SD card works when plugged directly to the Pi
Replaced the GB reader
Re wired
Swapped Pis over

But still no luck

[PIXeL_92]

Here's an update: I managed to get it booted even all the way up to the screen of retropie asking for input controls. What I did is resolder all points again on the RP0 and shortened the exposed part of the electrical wires. This gave me boot success. However, the booting is very inconsistent and often gives disk errors or FAILED starting of services and occasionally just stalls. Anyone an idea what could cause that?

I have managed to get this far now but have the same syptoms described above, how did you do the aligning ?

Cheers

[Joery]

Well, first I desoldered again all connections I made to the SD card pads at the RP0 and I cut the "exposed/copper" part of all the cables as short as possible in order to prevent possible interference. I resoldered them to the RP0 and it immediately gave me the ability to boot, but not yet with 100% success. Then, I took a tooth pick or something else sharp, but non-metal to "rub" between all solder points of the SD card pads of the RP0 in order to remove some possible connections between pads due to tiny solder parts that might have accidentally spilled and make unwanted connections between pads. This again give more reliability but still some errors. Finally, I partially opened the gameboy cartridge and only plugged the half of the plastic cartridge case that includes the PRS-Tech pcb + sd card into the cartridge reader and I noticed that they don't perfectly match when you just plug it in. However, if you slide it more to the left, you see that you can align the connector pads on the PRS-Tech card with the pins of the cartridge reader. I also triple checked if I had no connection between pins of the cartridge reader and in order to be 100% sure I didn't make any unwanted connections due to spilled solder I used a small kitchen knife going in between the pins until i could go all the way to the plastic of the cartridge reader in order to remove any unwanted solder. After all of this I have consistently been able to boot each time without any errors. Oh yes, also make sure the ground and 3.3.v cables are apart from the other cables soldered on the RP0 SD pads and especially not twisted around them, because I noticed this could also give errors (I'm not sure if this is a fact or just coincidence).

I wish you all the best and please share if you are able to successfully boot it!

Joery

[Zacarycaine]

I've been having the exact same problem as well.

Been trouble shooting for hours!

I get nothing but 4 blinking lights on my Pi.

I'm going to try to do what you suggested and I'm actually gonna try to shorten the wires themselves.

Who knows, it might work.

I'll post here with any updates.

[Zacarycaine]

Update!

I shortend my wires from the cartridge reader to my Pi....

And it worked!

Tested about 10 times already and it still works.

I cut down my wires to about 4 inches each.

It might be a little bit of a hassle when I close up everything and have to solder the wires to the Pi again
but the Pi literally sits right on top of this cartridge reader, so you don't need much wire in the first place.

[Joery]

Great! I am very happy it also worked for you. Good luck with the rest of your GBZ project!

Joery

[PIXeL_92]

I will have to try using some alchohol to clean the pads around the board, I can't get my wires any shorter. I can get it to boot everytime however it gives me an error something along the line of "fatal kernal," will have to get it again when I am home tonight and won't boot past their, but when the card is in the Pi0 directly it is fine.

I will also give seperating the cables a go as I used flat IDE cables to wire it up that are all stuck to each other.

It is really annoying as it did work.

Cheers for the help

[jellybelly]

i shall have to give all of the above a go tonight to see if i can get mine working