Universal (game) cartridge holder

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

By chance I got my hands on some Nintendo GameBoys for repair. There were the usual issues: missing lines in the LCD, battery spills and missing parts... But I managed to revive all of them as so I got to keep two.
This of course called for Tetris via the link-cable, Super Mario, Zelda,... Well, I went down the retro-rabbit-hole once more.
Next thing was my wife's old SEGA GameGear which had leaking capacitors all over. So I changed all of them (never knew electrolyte can small that bad when soldering). In the end I successfully brought it back from the dead.
Next thing you know, some cartridges were bought and soon I wanted to have a nice display (or at least some way to store them nicely) for the game cartridges.
There are a bunch of cartridge holders here on Thingiverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:614849
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1377869
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3155892
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:993806
really - many more...
But somehow, none of them really was what I was really looking for:
too big, too small (Rammstein anyone?)
needs too much material, where it is not needed for support
cartridges cannot be put at an angle
I want to have them with or without protective hull (most people seem to throw the hulls away...)
the same design for GameBoy and GameGear (and potentially other things)
So with some time at hand I dug out OpenSCAD once more and got to work. Also this sounded like a perfect match for the Thingiverse Customizer (https://www.thingiverse.com/customizer), as I know I cannot cater everybody's needs.
The result is the thing I share with you here - and is basically a mixture of the best-of I found here:
the number of cartridges to hold can be defined
the presentation angle of the cartridges can be set
by changing the set of properties almost any cartridge can be defined (I give examples for GameBoy cartridges with/without the protective hull, same for the GameGear)
reduce the amount of material needed by removing non-critical parts
can be adjusted for almost any type of cartridge (most likely also CD/DVD cases, NES games - virtually anything cubic)
To make the most of this design, check the Open in Customizer button on the right. I tried to describe the parameters as good as I can. If something is lacking, let me know in the comments.
Note: I haven't found out how (or if it es even possible) to use presets for certain parameter sets, so you have to type them in yourself.
The most important three items are:
cartridge width in mm
cartridge depth in mm
number of cartridges to hold
For simple cartridges it usually enough to modify only these. Play around with the other parameters to see what you can do. Here are some general hints:
Some cartridge types (e.g. the GameGear ones) have a bulge at the top, so they need more distance in between them - adjust the Separator Width accordingly.
Bigger cartridges may require more support from the holder. Raise the Holder Height if needed.
I the last cartridge at the back eats away your back wall, increase the Outer Wall Width.
Not all cartridges and holders are created equal - be sure to measure at least three pieces in order to come up with a good starting point for width and depth.
Due to material shrinking, also add maybe 0.5mm to your measurements to have a normal, but not too tight fit of the cartridge in the holder.
If you do not want the material to be removed between the holder tabs, set the Cutout Ratio to zero.
Here are some parameters I have used with respect to the defaults (copied straight from the OpenSCAD source):
Nintendo Game Boy - cartridge with protective hull
cartridge_width = 65.0;
cartridge_depth = 13.5;
Nintendo Game Boy - cartridge only
cartridge_width = 57.5;
cartridge_depth = 8.0;
SEGA Game Gear - cartridge with protective hull
cartridge_width = 78.5;
cartridge_depth = 15.5;
holder_height = 20.0;
outer_wall_width = 4;
SEGA Game Gear - cartridge only
cartridge_width = 67.5;
cartridge_depth = 8.5;
separator_width = 3.0;
I also added 5-part STL exports for a quick reference so: Happy organizing!