LED in Cart

iX NES Xi · Post by **iX NES Xi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:20 am

I was just wondering, (after I just reemed the screws in a SNES cart out) what i could do with it. I was considering putting an LED on the cart so when it is inserted and the SNES is powered on, the LED on the cart will light, my only problem is, is that i dont know where to solder it, and wheather or not it will mess with the game while it is playing. Other then that i am fine.

MiGs · Post by **MiGs** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:28 am

The Game Genie for the SNES had a LED that turned on when the codes were on.... and a game was connected to that... so I'm guessing your cool with that, now, as to which pin the power is coming through... I have no clue.

iX NES Xi · Post by **iX NES Xi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:33 am

hmm... im wondering if i should plug the cart into my SNES and then touch the LED in various spots to see what powers it on, the only problem I face after that is will i need a resistor

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:42 am

please dont do that.. check google for cart pin outs before at least!

iX NES Xi · Post by **iX NES Xi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:47 am

thanks for looking out for me cennar, I guess i will google "SNES cart pinouts" then and hope i yield good results

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:52 am

yeah there sould be a ground and a 5volt pin some wares. you wont find it on gamesx gut a simmeller site might have it.

iX NES Xi · Post by **iX NES Xi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:56 am

i looked on gamesx and the only pin outs of carts they had were sega systems, i also googled for SNES pinouts but i dident find nething as well, i will look again in a minute tho just in case i missed something

iX NES Xi · Post by **iX NES Xi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:04 am

I found a site (http://pinouts.ru/data/CartridgeSnes_pinout.shtml) it goes up to 58, yet there are only 47 pins on the SNES cart, correct me if im missing something, im new at cartrige boards

EDIT: I think I understand now, the only problem i am facing now is where do i put the LED

xriverfalconx · Post by **xriverfalconx** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 7:25 am

Pin 27 and 58 i see gives the +5 V for ya...as for the other pins with nothing in them...theoretically speaking, if those pins were removed from the cart slot, does anyone think that the snes would run the game still???

If it DOES work, then removing the cart slot and adding wires just got a WHOLE lot easier!!! I have an extra SNES (original) that I could test this on. However, I would rather get some opinions on this first before trying it out.

Cyberblade · Post by **Cyberblade** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 7:08 pm

xriverfalconx wrote:Pin 27 and 58 i see gives the +5 V for ya...as for the other pins with nothing in them...theoretically speaking, if those pins were removed from the cart slot, does anyone think that the snes would run the game still???

If it DOES work, then removing the cart slot and adding wires just got a WHOLE lot easier!!! I have an extra SNES (original) that I could test this on. However, I would rather get some opinions on this first before trying it out.

You could re-wire it without those pins, but games such as Starfox and specialty chip games won't run. Look on the bottom of SNES carts, some have the full amount of pins, others don't.

xriverfalconx · Post by **xriverfalconx** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 7:41 pm

I see what you mean...overall, it's best to wire it up completely! Thank you very much!!!

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 8:19 pm

Seems like a lot of effort to put an LED in every cart. I'd say your biggest problem might be if too much current goes through the LED, but you can probably solve this with the right sized resistor. As stated above, watch out for just touching the LED to random pins. In the electronics world, that's generally a straight road to badness. It sounds like you've got it worked out though. I'd recommend maybe looking for a way to keep the LED in the system itself though, just because that seems easier.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 10:52 pm

Find 5V and ground on the cart, then use this to determine the resistor for your LED

Foxx373 · Post by **Foxx373** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 5:21 am

http://www.hardwarebook.net/ has great pinout lists

roto · Post by **roto** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:02 pm

Like this?

Done.

Check "SNES Kart" dox for pinouts. Great document. Pin 58 is +5V and Pin 36 is +0v (GND). Other side has the same stuff..diff pins.
I stripped off the PCB coating layer on the PCB where pins 58 and 36 have long connection strips as you can see. Tested with multimeter to make sure I got the right place.

DMM test to make sure I actually got everything right. Pretty constant 5.05/5.06v so everything's great.

Soldered a 5mm LED and 150ohm resistor to the wires. 150ohm is probably too small (too much current to LED) but I don't care. This was just a test and I'll never actually use this cart (the game sucks ass).

Another test this time to make sure the LED lights. It does.

Inside the cart. Had to cut off that notch so it wouldn't hit my badly-placed LED cabling. Oh and drilled a hole for the LED. Great place to put it cause the cart actually had a notch there that was like an indentation or something... Would have been a good idea if I covered the leads and prevented them from shorting out stuff, but the placement is pretty great and I really don't care enough.

Final shot of the completed cart. Nice eh? Heh.