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Reverse engineering 161 in 1 cartridge to change Rom games

It seems shipping from Alibaba is quite a bit, about $40 on average. Only a couple offered shipping by boat and the ones who did it was still like around $25. Found some other websites, with some offering HK post shipping, which is slow but much less. Of the 10 or so websites that I went back and forth with, these 3 were the lowest priced.

http://www.sunnlyic.com/ Price per unit $4.50 Slow shipping $12
michael@sunnlyic.com
Went with these guys because everyone else was sending me what seems to be the same stock image I posted before when asked. They sent me the fallowing pic when asked. It was a little more per unit, but I feel the most confident with this seller.

http://www.fchips.com/ Price per unit $3.10 Slow shipping $15
lynn@fchips.com
Low price but forgot to ask for pic of stock. Might be worth fallowing up on.

www.chip1cloud.com Price per unit $2.95 FedEx International Economy is 'about $31'
numwan@vastee.com
They said they send pics of the ICs once order is placed. Low price but shipping is up there. Weird that the website domain doesn't match the contact email.

Here is the webpage used to source all the leads, along with the ones not listed.
https://www.digipart.com/part/F0095H0

Am pretty sure QFN package is real package for this IC. If you call it BGA it might confuse the seller.
 

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How did you communicate with them? Their website doesn't bring this IC as something that's available and they're not listed on the digipart site either.
 
Interesting, have no idea why these domains are not listed. I just sent a quotation request to everyone of those links from digipart that had a unique domain name. I'll update the post with the emails that contacted me back.
 
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darknezz19 said:
Went with these guys because everyone else was sending me what seems to be the same stock image I posted before when asked. They sent me the fallowing pic when asked. It was a little more per unit, but I feel the most confident with this seller.
Click to expand...
That's excellent. I'm sure that $12 shipping doesn't scale per chip, so maybe we should get a bit of a group thing going on and get a bunch brought over and distributed?

I don't mind putting in the legwork in receiving/repackaging/shipping if there are enough folks interested in the US.
 
rewrite said:
That's excellent. I'm sure that $12 shipping doesn't scale per chip, so maybe we should get a bit of a group thing going on and get a bunch brought over and distributed?

I don't mind putting in the legwork in receiving/repackaging/shipping if there are enough folks interested in the US.
Click to expand...

I'm down. Lets get it!
 
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rewrite said:
I've already got a couple PM's too. I'm going to spin off a thread to group buy the project pieces. I do not intend to make any money from this, just save everyone by getting things combined shipped into the states.

Please post interest here and let this continue to be about the project.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/thr...r-group-buy-gb-ends-10-20-midnight-pst.27504/
Click to expand...

Be careful with this. Things can go really bad, QUICKLY, if you get a bunch of fakes or damaged components. AliExpress sells the 161-in-1 rev 3 carts for $48USD, shipping included. You get 3 chips per cart at a cost of $16 per chip delivered. Best part is you know the chips are 100% legit and working great (just turn on the multicart to see that) and the chip is already soldered to the PCB that can be used to reprogram the flash.

Maybe a better option would be to see who's interested in parting out a multicart? some of us just need 1 flash chip to reach 3G and are left with 2 chips in the cart that can be used by someone else.
 
leonk said:
Be careful with this. Things can go really bad, QUICKLY, if you get a bunch of fakes or damaged components. AliExpress sells the 161-in-1 rev 3 carts for $48USD, shipping included. You get 3 chips per cart at a cost of $16 per chip delivered. Best part is you know the chips are 100% legit and working great (just turn on the multicart to see that) and the chip is already soldered to the PCB that can be used to reprogram the flash.

Maybe a better option would be to see who's interested in parting out a multicart? some of us just need 1 flash chip to reach 3G and are left with 2 chips in the cart that can be used by someone else.
Click to expand...
It doesn't seem to be that huge of a risk. The chip pics sent to @darknezz19 look to be fine. The only thing that would be wasted is time, really, should the seller turn out to be an issue.

You're looking at $19-20/chip doing it by multicarts (3-4 to ship the chip off domestically to the next person). This looks like it would be half the price give or take.

A multicart part-out thread would be rough to manage. I suppose people could just post that they have one and others could say they need one and let folks self-manage. Seems wasteful to order so many spare PCBs and carts just to get a chip off of them though.
 
rewrite said:
It doesn't seem to be that huge of a risk. The chip pics sent to @darknezz19 look to be fine. The only thing that would be wasted is time, really, should the seller turn out to be an issue.
Click to expand...

Not when you're ordering 100 chips for a group buy. Who's going to eat the $500 loss if the chips turn out to be bad? That's a huge risk for someone with 0 reward (Assuming the organizer is selling them at cost)

Just something to keep in mind for whomever decides to go down that route; you are dealing with suppliers from the far east; this is not Mouser.
 
leonk said:
Who's going to eat the $500 loss if the chips turn out to be bad?
Click to expand...
The seller. Chargebacks with a quality credit card work just fine whether it's Mouser or suppliers from the far east. Heck, we even got to see Amex take care of an entire container of cabinets Yaton couldn't be bothered to ship!
 
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Is anyone else having issues with VTXCart.exe reporting as a virus and being automatically deleted by the browser and/or Windows?
 
Building the boards up now - I don’t need a full collection. Hopefully those games I do want will fit in the available space

Fortunately my board has DIP daughterboards for the C ROMs and not the stilts. That will be a huge help
 
Good news and bad news today

Bad news - I have officially ruined my 161 in 1. I have absolutely no idea how to remove the large chips on the daughterboard, as soon as it seemed to be coming loose the SMD mounted pins on the daughterboard side tore off the daughterboard and took the traces with them :(

Good news - If I can find a way of getting these chips off, I have 3 donors for a complete cart

Can anyone give some insight into how these daughterboards need to be removed? Desoldering gun doesn't work (Hakko FR-301 with 0.6mm tip) and hot air doesn't work

Edit: I tried on the other 2 chips and got a bit further with hot air, but on the far end the last 6-7 rows just refuse to budge no matter how much fresh solder/flux/hot air/desoldering I throw at them

Additional Edit:
To those people looking into a group buy of the F0H00950 ICs

I STRONGLY recommend you see if you are able to remove the daughterboards from the 161 board before you commit to buying a bunch of those chips. These pins are so small and it makes them extremely difficult to remove
 
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xodaraP said:
Good news and bad news today

Bad news - I have officially ruined my 161 in 1. I have absolutely no idea how to remove the large chips on the daughterboard, as soon as it seemed to be coming loose the SMD mounted pins on the daughterboard side tore off the daughterboard and took the traces with them :(

Good news - If I can find a way of getting these chips off, I have 3 donors for a complete cart

Can anyone give some insight into how these daughterboards need to be removed? Desoldering gun doesn't work (Hakko FR-301 with 0.6mm tip) and hot air doesn't work

Edit: I tried on the other 2 chips and got a bit further with hot air, but on the far end the last 6-7 rows just refuse to budge no matter how much fresh solder/flux/hot air/desoldering I throw at them

Additional Edit:
To those people looking into a group buy of the F0H00950 ICs

I STRONGLY recommend you see if you are able to remove the daughterboards from the 161 board before you commit to buying a bunch of those chips. These pins are so small and it makes them extremely difficult to remove
Click to expand...
I often flatten MV1Bs and my chinese desolder gun have trouble desoldering pins connected to the ground plane.
What I do is to desolder the old way with a good desolder pump and a large chisel tip at 450Cº.
You can try Chip Quik/low melting solder too, but i've never tried/needed.
 
xodaraP said:
Bad news - I have officially ruined my 161 in 1. I have absolutely no idea how to remove the large chips on the daughterboard, as soon as it seemed to be coming loose the SMD mounted pins on the daughterboard side tore off the daughterboard and took the traces with them :(

Good news - If I can find a way of getting these chips off, I have 3 donors for a complete cart

Can anyone give some insight into how these daughterboards need to be removed? Desoldering gun doesn't work (Hakko FR-301 with 0.6mm tip) and hot air doesn't work
Click to expand...
This is why you've seen a number of people post pictures of replacement daughterboards with through hole pins. I ruined 2 before I figured out how to remove them. The key thing with the original daughterboards is to avoid any type of pull pressure on them. The boards are super thin and trying to pull them out of the cart board or female connector of the dumper board is enough to pop the pads off.

For desoldering, like you, I have have a FR-301 with 0.6mm tip. I use that to remove the solder from the holes. Then use fine tip tweezers and a magnifying glass to verify every pin is lose in their holes. If a pin is not lose, apply fresh solder to the pin and desolder again. Once all pins are verified lose, I use the handle side of my tweezers to push down on the pins. Doing around 1/4 of them at a time. Like this

IMG_1081.jpg


If a section is not wanting to go down, double check the pins in that section. Once the pins are all flush with the board, very very gingerly pull the daughterboard out.

Once the daughterboard is out check the smd side of the pins to verify they are aligned right. I've found that the ones on the end will sometimes be to rotated, not sure if that me or how they came.

This is my method for getting the daughterboards out of the dumper board and cart once you have the female connector installed. The key is to not pull on the daughterboard but to push it out of the connector using the SMD side of the pins. This picture illustrates how this will work.

IMG_1082.jpg


It will look something like this when the board is in the dumper board. (unrelated: take note of the orientation of the daughterboard. The flash chip should be under the STM board and not sticking out of the dumper board as you might expect for dumper/writing the chip).

IMG_1083.jpg


It will likely be easier to have the daughterboard facing down on a flat surface when you do this. Apply pressure to your tweezers against the SMD side of the pins and slowly pull up on the dumper board, switching between the 2 rows of pins until its fully loose.
 
Thank you for the information, I will see how I go removing the remaining headers from the PCB with the method above

All of the daughterboard replacements I’ve seen add the ability of a second flash chip. I’m assuming if you only have 1 on there it will still work as a normal board?

I think the PCB side is ok and I’ve almost got all of the headers removed. I’m going to order a set of the replacements and continue on. All other chips have been removed and attached to their dumper boards
 
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xodaraP said:
Thank you for the information, I will see how I go removing the remaining headers from the PCB with the method above

All of the daughterboard replacements I’ve seen add the ability of a second flash chip. I’m assuming if you only have 1 on there it will still work as a normal board?

I think the PCB side is ok and I’ve almost got all of the headers removed. I’m going to order a set of the replacements and continue on. All other chips have been removed and attached to their dumper boards
Click to expand...

I have a normal daughterboard replacement here

https://github.com/jwestfall69/neogeo-161in1-daughterboard

Its a chopped down version of the dual one. I have some that are suppose to be arriving on monday, so its untested at this point.
 
Don't have a FR-301 here unfortunately, but was able to get one out as a test with just hot air.

Propped the pcb up with a couple of screw bits under the main pcb, so there was enough clearance to push the dip headers down flush. Applied new leaded solder and flux. Heated the legs up with hot air and once the solder was good and melted, used a piece another random pcb to push them down flush. Then propped the pcb up vertically, and heated them up again, and was able to remove it with my fingers without damaging the traces. Then you have to clean up all the headers with copper wick and flux, which is not fun as they are delicate and bend easily. All and all, a huge pain, at least for me.
 
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darknezz19 said:
Don't have a FR-301 here unfortunately, but was able to get one out as a test with just hot air.

Propped the pcb up with a couple of screw bits under the main pcb, so there was enough clearance to push the dip headers down flush. Applied new leaded solder and flux. Heated the legs up with hot air and once the solder was good and melted, used a piece another random pcb to push them down flush. Then propped the pcb up vertically, and heated them up again, and was able to remove it with my fingers without damaging the traces. Then you have to clean up all the headers with copper wick and flux, which is not fun as they are delicate and bend easily. All and all, a huge pain, at least for me.
Click to expand...
Glad that way work out for you. I was worried about doing it with hot air. My concern was that you have to have the board hot enough for the solder in the holes to be molten and in doing so could there end up being enough heat transfer through the pins for the solder on the SMD side of the pins to also become molten.
 
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