Low cost Flash Hucard

[esteban]

My NeoFlash took some work to get running, but it's been rock solid since; and as an added bonus, it doesn't get hit by the power switch like my TED does.

Then there *is* hope for me.

I still need to get the stupid card reader/writer (and a card) for TED.

And if I am doing that, I may as well attempt to get all my flash cards operational (Neo, gameofyou)...

Sad.

I am stoopid.

[Necromancer]

I need a new sd card for my TED, as I recently destroyed mine trying to whittle it down enough for the power switch to slide by.

If you've ever wondered how much extra plastic is in one of those things, the answer is "not fricking much". 

[esteban]

I need a new sd card for my TED, as I recently destroyed mine trying to whittle it down enough for the power switch to slide by.

If you've ever wondered how much extra plastic is in one of those things, the answer is "not fricking much". 

Hahahhahahajja.

...and you are the one who is supposed to have *finesse* when it comes to these sorts of projects.

[Gredler]

Hah thanks for the suggestion necro, and more so the warning - sorry for your loss. Maybe it would be worth applying that same technique to the power switch? It's just to prevent the chip from  sliding out while power is on right? Like the slot on gameboy games that allowed the power button to slightly overlap it?

Seems like 3D printed power switches would be a low cost and rudimentary production?

Edit: I suppose it could also have been for copy protection, my point is the plastic part of the switch that sits over the sd card would not be needed for the games to run right?

[spenoza]

Fortunately, the entire PCE HuCard collection fits on a 2GB card, no problem, so it'll be a cheap replacement.

[Necromancer]

Yarr, it's no big deal.  The time wasted trying to shave it down was probably worth more than the card.

I did look at trimming off the horizontal portion of the L shaped power switch, but disassembling the system looked like too much effort if the card trimming would've worked.

[Keith Courage]

I eventually found the Windows 7 netbook (Shortest lived fad in computing history, netbooks? Maybe.) and made an attempt to flash something new onto my card. However it doesn't work, for some reason. The card no longer has Logic on it but I can't seem to get anything to flash now. The card was working perfectly until I tried to change the game.

Yeah, I have seen this happen on a few cards.  I have never been able to determine if the bare pcb's are to blame or the soldering process.  Usually the cause is that a connection has opened up (either a pcb via, or a cold solder joint).  This prevents the erase cycle from happening, as it should.  You will know this if the led begins flashing right away after clicking download.  Normally, there will be a few seconds where the flash is erased, before the led starts flashing.

Reflowing the solder to the microcontroller and the flash chips might fix it.  You could maybe even do this in a toaster oven, if you can't solder small pins.  You can also try putting light pressure against the microcontroller and flash chips, with your fingers, while the download is happening.  Sometimes this works.

I figured out why windows 7 was giving me issues. Turns out all I had to do was change my comport number using the device manager. Com was set to com11 prior so the software couldn't find it. I simply changed the com port to com2 and now it shows up right away in the software.