Nes to Famicom adapters?

[ultrageranium]

After spending some time scouring Aliexpress I found this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-NES-card-turn-FC-host-using-72-feet-turn-60-feet-converter-in-high/1069576571.html

Maybe would work?  I dunno, but it's only $15 shipped from China!

And cheaper than the auction listed above which ended up at $15.51 + $6 shipping from HK.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

I'm the one that won the auction. I'd rather pay the $6 extra and stick to what I know. Plus, I get ebay bucks back every 3 months, so there is an extra incentive to shop on ebay. And well, to be honest, if you look close at the pics, they sacked a cart and used its shell to make that one on Ali. Look close and you can see its not cut even or anything. Basically just someone selling hand made ones.

[SephirothTNH]

You're right.  But maybe they are sacking pirate carts?  I think I may order one soon.  If I do I'll report back on anything interesting.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yeah I'm curious as to how they are. It looks like they filled in the inside with hot glue, which I am guess is to prevent wobble.

[xelement5x]

Yeah I'm curious as to how they are. It looks like they filled in the inside with hot glue, which I am guess is to prevent wobble.

Yeah, I am normally skeptical of a lot of stuff from China.  Many time you can tell it is the same product, just sold by various same people at prices varying slightly. 

[ultrageranium]

And well, to be honest, if you look close at the pics, they sacked a cart and used its shell to make that one on Ali. Look close and you can see its not cut even or anything. Basically just someone selling hand made ones.

Yeah I'm curious as to how they are. It looks like they filled in the inside with hot glue, which I am guess is to prevent wobble.

Oh! Well spotted, I missed such details, now that you just mention it, it does indeed look like a DIY job, as the name implies not so subtly. In fact this is pretty much something that could have been made following such an HOWTO: http://nesdev.com/NES_ADAPTER.txt

[ProfessorProfessorson]

The adapter I ended up getting arrived today. It works fine. The cart slot pins on it grip nice and are thick. The only thing I noticed is you have to slide it to the left or right of the Nes cart once it is inserted into the adapter to make sure the pins make a perfect connection with the Nes games contacts.

[ultrageranium]

The adapter I ended up getting arrived today. It works fine. The cart slot pins on it grip nice and are thick. The only thing I noticed is you have to slide it to the left or right of the Nes cart once it is inserted into the adapter to make sure the pins make a perfect connection with the Nes games contacts.

Sounds good. The game does not crash when you touch the cart or move the console?

[ProfessorProfessorson]

No. Slight wobble does not seem to affect it. Maybe if you jerked really hard it might. But I have no plans to do something like that. I sit pretty close to the system so that is a non-issue.

[ultrageranium]

No. Slight wobble does not seem to affect it. Maybe if you jerked really hard it might. But I have no plans to do something like that. I sit pretty close to the system so that is a non-issue.

Thanks for the review

I'll cowardly wait to see if someone gets the one from Ali and reports back. Otherwise I might get one. I looked into doing one myself with the instructions above, but even with an existing unused FC game to cannibalise, getting a spare 72 pin connector is around 13-14$, not really worth time/money/effort.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

I think I found a fix so that the connection issue can be prevented completely, as long as the cart pins are clean. Basically what it is is the pcb inside the adapters case has slack. The post from the shell in the center that hold the adapter pcb in place are a tad thinner then the actual pcb through holes. Due to that as you insert a cart on it, the adapter pcb inside the shell can be slightly forced downward, making the connectors on one side of the Nes cart slightly lose connection.

Basically on a Nes game, any given one, one side of the connectors has less length then the other side. The shorter connection side loses connection slightly due to that slack and the adapter pcb shifting position.

My fix for this was taking some strips of clear then plastic and folding them to the correct thickness to make them into wedges, then sticking them at specific spots inside the shell so that they will prevent the adapter pcb from shifting postion down low anymore. I used dabs of hot glue to keep the wedges in place. All in all it works rather well.








EDIT: Yeah this fix did exactly what I expected it to do. No more slack, so the adapter pcb no longer shifts postion. So now I don't have to dick around with sliding the thing left or right on the Nes carts to try to make it connect better on some of my carts. Now everything works fine right from the get go, on the first try.

[ultrageranium]

Put it back on Ebay, label it version two and sell it twice the price

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Just an update, found a game that seems to have issues with this adapter. Abadox. Game will power on and act ok at first, but about 40 seconds in if you shoot any enemies the game will freeze up. If you avoid shooting anyone for about a min or so you can keep playing till right after you get past the first set of teeth inside the alien planet thing. Then the game will freeze again. I need to pick up a normal Nes to confirm it is not just a defective cart, but I have a feeling the cart is fine, and it is just an issue with the adapter.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Another update. The adapter I got also will not work with Castlevania 1. I have a Nes also, so no big deal for me, but I will continue to post when I come across Nes carts that do not work with this thing.

[ginoscope]

Is the adapter you are using the same as this one?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Shielded-72-pin-to-60-pin-adaptor-Converter-for-nes-game-Famicom-Console-System-/221834256884?hash=item33a65a21f4:g:lWgAAOSwrklU7spq

I use the above adapter and I have no issues playing any nes game on my av famicom.  I did have to make an easy modification to let Castlevania III work.  Overall I been very happy with how this adpater works.