Cartridge support/eject mechanism

[Snow_Cat]

I have this idea for a flush swingout support/ejector mechanism for cartridge loading.

Two arms catch the bottom of the cartridge on insertion and are raised cupping the cart.
On extraction the arms are depressed, lifting the cartridge from the socket.
A foot linking both arms is not illustrated, but it prevents the cartridge from being damaged by the arms.

Animated GIF illustrating operation.

Spoiler:

There is a bit of a problem where the cart may be flung from the mechanism after slipping free of it's socket.

Animated GIF illustrating design pivot adjustment, allowing for a lower profile.

Spoiler:

Integrating a cartridge lock is possible but would prohibit the use of passthrough and irregular-length carts; though this design is incompatible with platform expansions.

A geared (drive/catch) arm arrangement would allow for even greater arm rotation with less insertion displacement, however it would not be forgiving of low mfg. quality. An articulated arm even less.

Design feedback/suggestions?

[gamax92]

looks real nice but i have one little problem.
Where does that mount to.
how big is the project case(if your making a portable)

EDIT: What controlls all of that.
motor and a pulley system is all i can think of.

[Snow_Cat]

It is user actuated and mounted sits in the outer wall of the case.

• Pushing the cartridge into the slot raises the arms.
• When raised the arms prevent the cartridge from tipping out of the slot, and the slot's resitance holds the cartridge in.
• When the user presses the arms back down the cartrige is lifted out.

The red nipples are linked by a captive spring and inside a hollow foot. When the cart is removed the hollow channel is brought flush with the top, and a flexible (PET?) dust cover drops over the slot. The arms are kept flush by the spring pulling them in by the nipples.

I'm going build something similar for my Intellivison since I remember having no end of trouble extracting the slippery cartridges without clasing up the labels in the process. However this idea could be useful for other cases.

[gamax92]

any more diagrams because im a little lost.

IS IT

A: []- :The cartridge sits on the back

B: []| :The cartridge rest on something

|
C: [] :The cartridge sits on the top

[Snow_Cat]

[Mario]

Neat idea, and great animations, but why?

[Snow_Cat]

Why share the idea?

The recent 'InstaLoad' patent has reminded me to 'Publish or die.'

Like many other 'original ideas' that have captured public intrest I have had first but never published. And I promised myself that I would never be edit like Issac Newton and stake a claim after someone else has gotten excited about it since it is my own fault for never sharing it when it was my idea.

If an idea is not shared then it never happened.

Why this idea?
The flat, smooth sided carts of the Intellivision are difficult to extract and this would make extracting them easier without greatly affecting the asthetics of the system or damaging the cartridges. Stabalising the cart is a side-effect of having the arms raise up around the cart.

In a portable system where for reasons of volume or asthetics having a permanent pocket is undesireable this may solve the problem of securing the cart (instead of extracting it) without significantly affecting the asthetics or volume of the system.

Also, I refer to this as the point intime where (18) years after having the idea I am making it mine for everyone to use.

Spoiler:

A system for the stabilization and extraction of cartridges. by Darren Lue Choy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Also, I am calling dibbs on pasting a leticular lens to a CRT using vertical interlacing for stereo image seperation / headset free 3-d.

edit: language

[Rekarp]

you can probably use two really cheap servos to do it.

[themadhacker]

Sort of reminds me of 8 track players. they have this metal arm that has a small roller on the end which locks the cartridge in place while playing.

[gamax92]

I thought this was for the nintendo 64

EDIT: You could just change the design a little but why not springs to prop the cart up.
. ____ .
|-------|
|_____|
+||||+

The '+' would be a spring
The '||||' would be the connector.

[jdmlight]

I thought this was for the nintendo 64

It should work for any cartridge-based system really, you would just have to adjust how big/small it is based on the size of the cartridge.

Neat idea! Although I can imagine funny Youtube videos of prototypes that accidentally launched the cartridge across the room.

[gamax92]

You could just change the design a little but why not springs to prop the cart up.
. ____ .
|-------|
|_____|
+||||+

The '+' would be a spring
The '||||' would be the connector.