Today I built a housing for my Retro Replay and MMC64 cards. The goal was to use standard clear snap-in module cases and and alter them so that the RR and the MMC board fits in.

Have a look at my workflow and my gallery…

MMC64 Case

The MMC64 Case needs a small slot on the left side of the upper case so that the SC Card fits in. At the rear a connector allows to attach the RR Cardridge. First I thought about cutting a small hole in the top case so that only the cardridge connector fits through it. But this only allows to attach the RR card without any housing. I wanted to have a case for RR, too so I decided to cut away the whole rear upper part of the MMC top case. Be careful here to not break the small bar between the SD Card slot and the top area for the RR module.

With the top case in shape I only had to glue a small 8mm wood bar on the bottom case to provide a spacer and to make the construction more stable if the RR+RRnet ist docked.

Finally, I wanted to get rid of opening the case anytime the MMC gets flashed. I soldered a two pin connector to a short wire and attached the connector instead of the flash jumper. The wire leads outside the case to a dip switch that allows to alter flash state very easily. I placed a 4-dip switch inside the RR case and and used Dip 4 to wire the MMC flash pin there.

RR+RRnet Case

My RR case has to fit around the RR board and the RRnet daughter board. The network board is larger than the housing so it will leave the case on the top. Its crucial to make only a small slot for the network board in the case, otherwise the network board wiggles around and may loose contact and most often does stop working.

I started with the two button holes at the rear side. You have to remove a half circle on both sides of the case at the right place. Just start of and compare many times if the board fits in nicely. The right side of the RR board is now fixed inside the case. For the left side that will carry the net board I added a 5mm wood block and glued it below the board on the left side of the bottom case.

For the RRnet board I had to cut out a hole with 7mm height and RRnet’s width in the rear of the top case. The resulting small piece of plastic was reduced to 5mm height and glued back at the back of the bottom case. This gives a small platform where the RRnet card will be placed upon. You may have to cut out a small hole for the network chip as it lies directly at the case border. It everything is done correctly the RRnet board now lies totally horizontal between the RR board connector and the newly created platform on the bottom case.

Finally, I cut a small hole in the top case for a 4-dip switch. I glued the switch into place from the inside and soldered small wires to connectors 1 and 2. The two wires lead to connectors and are the jumper replacements inside the RR board for Flashing and Bank select. Dip 3 is currently empty and Dip 4 is used for the MMC flash (see above).

Gallery

Here are photos of the final closed cartridges. Please note that you can use either both cartridges connected as a RR+RRnet+MMC64 combo or as standalone RR+RRnet or MMC64.