So, I got these five USB-cables off eBay for $0.99/pcs…

Plan is to sandwich two of the springy type of connectors –
the “female” end that is.

I bought an extra cable just in case I messed one up.
The cover seemed loose so I tried warming it up with a heat
gun and bent with a screwdriver. The metal and the white
plastic loosened but the connector parts stayed on their
cables inside the cover. No panic, just solder them off and
put them back in again.

Here’s the loose connector next to one of the untouched

I removed the metal piece and noticed I had stuffed one of
them back a little crooked, no problem I just reseated it
the right way.

One done, three more to go…
Now that I knew how it looked inside I took a different
approach, not taking the risk of damaging the pins on this
one. Carved it with a snap-off knife

… until I got this:

Then I simply compared the length to the other and chopped
the end off and pealed off the rest of the plastic. I was
more careful with the metal in case I can use it to montage
the sandwiched connectors in it again.
Voilà:

Soldered off the remaining part of the wires:

This is the idea:

I only need to cut off (or grind off) some plastic so they
get a little closer.

Then I spent half an hour making this post, more tomorrow –
if I feel like it. 😉

BTW: I had a really hard time with the pictures, making
miniatures manually, attach the file, upload, copy the link
into the add a picture window… so I decided to use
postimage instead…
EDIT: … and that didn’t work to well either, the links
seemed to be f*cked up – “.jpg” is added to the link
address for some reason. Where’s the “how-to” to add
pictures on this site, it’s the worst I’ve encountered so
far. Can’t linked pictures lead to anything but another
picture?

Yeah… I tried that a while ago, but it didn’t work out that great. You have to use a strong adhesive (like epoxy) to keep the two halves together, and it doesn’t really keep itself centered. The pins on the USB connector also aren’t equally spaced, though it’s close enough that it’ll work.

But if you’re wanting to make your own connector, a 0.1″ two row header works better (an extra pin on each side keeps it from getting off-center), although you have to bend the pins inward a little bit (the flex pins are what I liked about the USB type). I did try finding just that type of pin in a different assembly, but didn’t find any standard type, especially in a two row type.

DogP

I was planning to put them inside the metal but it’s a little to wide to fit in the narrow end of the connector. I could perhaps do a mold for the epoxy that would make it fit nicely in the VB-connector.

Yes, I also noticed the two middle pins are a little closer together, but if they’re properly centered they will fit.

I had my eyes on one of the ISA-connectors on a PC motherboard, as the spacing is the same as on a Fairchild cartridge and those two make a good match, but I decided to try this first as the ISA-connector was a bit too thick.

If The +5V is also connected, would it be possible to drive the second VB if it doesn’t have power? Perhaps it won’t allow enough current?

Cool idea!

A few things I thought of, maybe these pins can be sourced by themselves in a crimp on format? Or at the very least, they can be pulled out of USB cables. Then they can be put in your own thing.

Another thing you could do is get a Card Edge / Edgeboard connector. May take some hacking to get it to fit in, but could be pretty cool.

Edit: Err, you said that in your last post, nevermind!

What’s a card-edge / edgeboard connector?

I googled and it looks kind of like the connector for a VIC20/C64 user-port or tape-port…

Same dimension?

The Commodore-type is the wrong size. The ones on the PC floppy cables seem to be the right size but they’re 2mm too wide and won’t fit the hole, and there’s not 1mm of material that can be removed on each side – so I’ll stick with the USB-cables for now.

I have 14 Fairchild Multi-Carts I need to get ready so I probably don’t have time to get this ready in the immediate future. 😉

I’ve actually modified a floppy connector to fit the link port. You do have to take quite a lot of material off to make it fit, but the ones I used seem to be holding together. I attached a before and after shot (which might be kinda dark if you don’t have your gamma set properly). The actual connector I used for the cable didn’t have that much removed and actually has enough left on it to center it and all that. I can’t find it, though 😛

It seems to fit pretty well, but I’ve never actually transmitted anything over it, because (I think) I wired up the other end wrong (I tried to make a VB<->LPT cable). I may fix it, someday. It’s just one of the MANY, MANY projects I never seem to find time for…

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I’m not sure about powering another VB from the link +5V… it’d likely work, but possibly overload the regulator. You can power a VB by driving the +5V directly with regulated +5V though.

DogP