Hello everybody, first time posting here. I'm playing around with modding an old broken original Game Boy and I was wondering if anyone here knows whether or not the ribbon cable connecting the two boards is a standard size that I could buy a socket for online? I'm a bit embarrassed to say I don't have a decent ruler around to accurately measure the contact spacing or I could probably answer this myself, and for now I can just desolder the one on the board since the Game Boy is dead and I already have a couple of others so I'm not interested in repairing this one. I'd just like to know if there's a standard ribbon connector I could look into since I'm actually designing a PCB for this particular mod and it'd be nice to use a standard footprint if possible. Thanks

If you can put the cable in a flatbed scanner and send me the original pic with the size of the width and length in inches, I can put in photo shop and give you a pretty accurate measurement of the spacing of the contacts in mm. That's the best I can do. When scanning, scan at 300 dpi and no scaling.

I just realized that I totally missed the handheld gaming forum, sorry... -_- Anyway, I found somebody who has started to diagram out the Game Boy's boards in Eagle, so based on that, I at least know the pin spacing for the socket's footprint on the board, I just don't know the size/spacing for the contacts on the cable itself. It's a 21-wire cable, and the connector pads on the board are ~3.5mmx0.5mm spaced 1mm center-to-center. The contacts on the cable itself are more widely spaced. I don't have a scanner. I may just have to invest in a decent ruler But once I get the measurements, I'll still be interested in seeing if it's a standard size and whether or not a replacement can be purchased from a distributor like Jameco or Digikey.

I think I have the measurements (at least fairly close) but can anyone tell me what this type of ribbon-cable connection is called? Searching Google (or distributors' websites) for "ribbon cable connectors" tends to come up with IDC connectors, which this obviously is not.

Just thought I'd post here to report (if for no other reason than to be able to reference it myself later) that the proper name for this type of ribbon cable is FFC (Flexible Flat Cable) and sometimes misnamed FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit), so that should help in my search (or if anybody else cares). I actually found the proper name awhile back, then totally forgot it, and it's a real pain to find since, as I noted before, almost all searches for "ribbon cable" return the IDC variety. If I find the proper socket specifically for the DMG's cable, I'll post a link.

Alright, I have a possible match. I'll order a sample and see if it works

http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0527932170_FFC_FPC_CONNECTORS.xml

Well, that was the wrong pitch I got it figured out though, 1.25mm pitch, not 1.0. Unfortunately, I can't get any 1.25mm pitch samples from Molex, but I believe they should work. Also, Molex doesn't have SMD connectors in the 1.25 pitch, so no drop-in replacement. Kyocera has a line of 1.25mm SMD FFC connectors, but they only go up to 20-contact. http://www.kyocera-connector.com/prdct/type/fpc/6207.html So close, yet so very far away...

Also, incidentally, the same cable in an 11-contact version is what is used to connect the SNES controller jack daughterboard to the mainboard in the old, large SNES models.