I am working on a Star Fox 2 cart using a Stunt Race FX, following the instructions from https://web.archive.org/web/20080318083831/http://snesdev.romhack.de/sf2.htm I should have quit when I saw the soldering that would need to be done on the rom chip, because it's beyond my abilities. But I forged ahead and here's what I got: I broke one of the leads on a trace, but managed to find another place to wire it. It's the CE lead on the chip, and I wired it to the cart connector. After that, I managed to almost get this cart working! It finally booted and played the opening song with no video. Once the opening music is finished, it just keeps playing the ending and hangs there. It seems to be starting the music and then crashing before I get any video. Anyone know what would cause these symptoms? When I was troubleshooting the problem, I managed to lift two more leads off the board -- The A6 and A7 leads. Anyone know where else I can tap these from? I can't really follow the leads because they are covered up. Even if I can get it back to where it was when I had the music, I'm still figuring out how to fix it. I made a mess of the board. I'm pretty sure it's fried. This is one project I wish I would have just paid someone else to do. Can anyone help? Thank you.
Your solder joints leave much to be desired, for all I know one of them isn't good enough to handle the data traffic and is the cause of your problems. You'll still have to find a way to stuff it into the cartridge which will probably break more pads.
I'm using a 25-watt iron from Radio Shack. The screw for tightening the tip broke when I was replacing the tip, but I was able to get it stuck on pretty good. Any suggestions for a new iron? My hands are also too shaky for this kind of detail. Anyone have any idea about where those two pins lead?
You need to use thinner wires and thinner solder(e.g. 0.5mm) and probably a thinner soldering tip(e.g. 1.6mm chisel) too. If you have a parallel cable from an old printer you can cut it open and use it's wires. They are individual colored and very thin. Just use this cart to learn how to solder and then buy a new one for the conversion.
It's *very* easy to lift the pads on Super FX cartridges. You need a finer tip soldering iron, probably less wattage too. It's not really a good amateur or learning project for soldering. I think that old guide somehow makes people think it's easier than it is.
I think a 15 watt soldering iron with a fine tip can do it, but I'm not a soldering expert. Surface mount soldering is not as forgiving as DIP type component soldering. You mentioned the CE lead on the ROM being connected to the cartridge edge? Because you lifted a pad. It should connect to a pin on the GSU chip or maybe even be grounded. Unlike normal cartridges, chips like Super FX may handle ROM access differently. So I'd double check that. That may be the only problem and maybe it's a simple fix.
I agree till it died a few days ago I did everything with my Antex C 15W iron with 0.5mm tip its perfect for this type of work
Damn. Wish I'd had that advice before I wrecked it, Mottzilla. Might've got it working. I don't know how to repair the other lifted pads. The guide does not make it look easy. As soon as I saw it I cringed, but I thought maybe I was ready and my tools were up to the job. The guide didn't make it look surface-mount though. If I'd realized that I never would've started. Once I realized what I was dealing with I was beyond the point of no return though.
I would recommend a 1.6mm chisel tip on a temperature controller soldering iron at 370° and 0.5mm 60/40 solder. Also use some colophony based flux, the solder will flow better and stick faster to the pcb, so you need to apply less heat. Also do not apply any pressure on any of the pads.
Oh man that soldier job is hard to look at but most of us have been their, a good way to get good at soldiering is just get a bunch of broken electronics and practice soldering wires from point to point , taking off and putting back on resisters and the like. I hope your able to save the board , also don't breath in the fumes that's bad news man.
I used a 15W radio shack iron for the two I built. I broke one trace on each (those things are pretty fragile). I had one short on each that I cleared up. I used a DMM on continuity mode to check for shorts across all the pins. When I did the final assembly on my cased cartridge (the other cart I have sitting here has no case, and I since changed to PowerSlide FX beta ROM which is a pretty terrible game but neat to see running on the real system), I managed to break one of the solder connections so I had to go under my drying epoxy and redo that part and then I put the chip back down and let the epoxy sit over night. It still works, I could pop the game in and play it right now. It's a really fun game as long as you don't set it on easy mode. I would suggest desoldering everything you have and those wires look like they can be a pain in the neck to use. I used a tutorial that called for used IDE drive cable (yech!! don't use that junk either it is terrible for solder flow!) so I switched out all of my wires for solid copper core (wrapping wire) which does the job very well and gets perfect flow. Anyway desolder all that stuff and change to copper wire and then redo the whole thing. You haven't wrecked anything. As far as it only playing sound, I dunno. I either would get no picture or I would get the game. I would dump the ROM from the chip and do a binary file compare against the ROM image itself and see if there's any inconsistencies. If there are, you should program another chip or UV wipe that one and reprogram it. This isn't a hard project but it takes practice. The first time I soldered wires to a cart, it was a mess and then when I re-did it, it was like a learning curve. Now my wires are done better and everything works. I have two of these carts with one game programmed on each. I'm thinking about taking powerslide fx off and putting starfox weekend on it or I might as well just epoxy a socket onto the back side of the board and then I can put whatever chip I want in the socket. That is why right now the extra board I have powerslide fx on has wires going out long enough to reach the back side, it is my plan for that cart. I also took the wires coming directly off the board and I used a hot glue gun (it works well, it doesn't even melt the wire insulation when you do this) on the wires so they won't move around and pull traces off the board or short out.
This isn't a "my 10/20/30th soldering project" sort of thing. Practice makes perfect and a lot is needed before you can pull off something like this. On top of the soldering job seen here you also have to keep in mind that it all has to get crammed into a cartridge which would likely break more joints in the process and/or lift more traces.
