What is the cause for making cartridges very difficult to push into place on some of these units?

[raymondjiii]

I've got a unit that it takes quite a bit of effort to push a cartridge in. The best I can tell is that it is the black plastic ring around the cartridge receptacle. (Take the top off and look at the black loop of plastic around the cartridge slot.)

 

I'm wondering what caused this since it does appear to be all four corners. It looks like I need to file down the insides of all four corners. That's not going to be fun.

[Jinks]

Lots of info on this in the 7800 forum.

File or cut or leave it.

There was an adapter made to fit 2600 games easier. I would never bother. Some find it too hard and need to fix it which can be an option if you wish. 

 

[juansolo]

6 hours ago, raymondjiii said:

I've got a unit that it takes quite a bit of effort to push a cartridge in. The best I can tell is that it is the black plastic ring around the cartridge receptacle. (Take the top off and look at the black loop of plastic around the cartridge slot.)

 

I'm wondering what caused this since it does appear to be all four corners. It looks like I need to file down the insides of all four corners. That's not going to be fun.

Yep it's the molding and you're right in that you'll need to file it down inside. It's common, especially with later 7800s. We theorise that it's the molds they used getting old. Also cart sizes vary to a degree and sometimes it's quite dramatic. It's just one of those things with the 7800.

 

Take the board out of your machine, then there are two screws underneath (covered with take, just poke your screwdriver through the tape). Unscrew those then unclip the cup. Don't try and do it in the machine it'll just make your life even more difficult.

[raymondjiii]

Thanks for your reply. I took it out and used a small drill bit on slow speed to grind some of the internal corners down and then went over them with a small file. Not "perfect" but significantly better.

[raymondjiii]

Some people have used a dremel to file down the corners...I am curious to hear which bit you used. I think all of the bits I have would rip this thing apart.

[juansolo]

I use a Dremel Stylo with a tiny grinding ball bit. Takes forever, but it's all I've got that can get deep in there.

Edited March 16, 2023 by juansolo

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I used to cut out the corners completely just using my dremel cutting wheel. Then used my small bar files to smooth up the cuts a little. Now I use one of the small rounded bar files and along with drilling out just the bottom on the sides, use the file to slowly remove material in the corners without having to cut all the way through.

 

I've found that the main issue for the stuck carts or not going in all the way is 2 main things. The main one of those two, is the corners but mainly at the bottom vs the top of the sleeve. The second is that I've had some sleeves where the issue was also the plastic in the center around the connector itself. Sometimes that is too thick and will bind up against the carts along the inside of the cartridge shell. 

 

Tigervision carts and others with very long dust pegs on them, won't fit due to the added plastic that was added on the bottom of the sleeve for those two screws that @juansolo mentioned. On a few occasions, I've cut out that plastic so only the side clip tabs hold the sleeve in place just so all carts could be used and seat down fully. But it isn't something I advise as it can cause the entire sleeve to have a lot of slop as well and not always line up nice with the actual cart port and opening.

 

 

[Jinks]

I never had any cart not fit my 7800s.

 

Do not be afraid ram it. 

 

[desiv]

I think those carts were designed by the guy who designed ALL the Vic-20 carts...

Man, I always feel like I'm going to shatter my Vic trying to get carts out... 
Luckily with a multicart on my 7800, I haven't run into that there..

[jhammond]

hello.  I'm wanting to play my Tigervision 2600 games on the 7800 console.  Obviously they don't fit.  I've read this thread about "cutting" parts...but I'm not understanding this completely.  Are you cutting something on the game cartridge or is it something inside the 7800 console?  Do you know if there is a YouTube video on this?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, jhammond said:

hello.  I'm wanting to play my Tigervision 2600 games on the 7800 console.  Obviously they don't fit.  I've read this thread about "cutting" parts...but I'm not understanding this completely.  Are you cutting something on the game cartridge or is it something inside the 7800 console?  Do you know if there is a YouTube video on this?

Depends on the tigervision carts. Some of them have spring loaded dust pegs and should fit and work fine. Some like my Miner 2049 cartridge are fixed in place and are too long. So years ago I used a nail cutter and trimmed off about about a cm from the end of each of the pegs. This allowed that game to work. Another method that isn't destructive to the game, is to take the 7800 apart, and then remove the cartridge sleeve as mentioned by the methods earlier in this thread. The two screws used to hold that sleeve into place, are actually the MAIN reason why tigervision games won't seat in all the way. The plastic used in the sleeve in that part for the screws to hold everything down, are actually in the spot where the dust pegs needed to go down further into the sleeve itself. But the plastic for the screws, prevent that from happening. So, you can carefully cut away the plastic inside the sleeve and open it back up. But doing this will mean the screws will no longer be usable to hold the sleeve down into place. So you have to rely on the side clips to hold it down along with the rest of the cover shell. Even then, there is still some play with the sleeve not always lining up 100% with the actual cartridge slot so you might find you have to be gentle with the games and move them about to get everything to line up and pop down into place.

 

I've not made any videos on this as most folks consider all of these methods to be destructive and so it can be frowned upon. While I still offer cartridge sleeve modification when I service 7800s, it isn't common for me to get the request as most folks will just use a 2600 for those games that might not fit well in their 7800s.

 

[Trebor]

18 hours ago, jhammond said:

hello.  I'm wanting to play my Tigervision 2600 games on the 7800 console.  Obviously they don't fit.  I've read this thread about "cutting" parts...but I'm not understanding this completely.  Are you cutting something on the game cartridge or is it something inside the 7800 console?  Do you know if there is a YouTube video on this?

 

See the below post with pictures as an example:

 

 

For convenience, from the console utilized in that thread, here are the before and after pictures of the slot.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Some specific cartridge type example pictures are in the spoiler, captured from a corner angle.

Spoiler

BEFORE:

 

 

 

AFTER:

 

An X-ACTO knife can work well for this modification.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

2 hours ago, Trebor said:

 

See the below post with pictures as an example:

 

 

For convenience, from the console utilized in that thread, here are the before and after pictures of the slot.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Some specific cartridge type example pictures are in the spoiler, captured from a corner angle.

  Hide contents

BEFORE:

 

 

 

AFTER:

 

An X-ACTO knife can work well for this modification.

Again, @Trebor the main issue with Tigervision games isn't the cartridge shell so much like it is with other 3rd party games, but more to do with the dust pegs that extend to the PCB edge and aren't spring loaded. The 7800's cartridge sleeve isn't as deep as the ones on the actual 2600s so as a result those carts can't even seat down all the way in because of the dust pegs stopping them in the process. Not all Tigervision games have this issue as my copy of Jawbreaker has spring loaded pegs on it, but I know my Miner 2049er cartridge has static pegs because I had to cut them years ago to trim them back so the game would seat fully into the slot to be played.

 

I think I've seen where some folks found out that if you carefully open the cartridge, you can sometimes swap the pegs around because they were molded with shorter pegs on the opposite side that is inside the cartridge? But I've not checked this for myself.

 

[Trebor]

8 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Again, @Trebor the main issue with Tigervision games isn't the cartridge shell so much like it is with other 3rd party games, but more to do with the dust pegs that extend to the PCB edge and aren't spring loaded. The 7800's cartridge sleeve isn't as deep as the ones on the actual 2600s so as a result those carts can't even seat down all the way in because of the dust pegs stopping them in the process. Not all Tigervision games have this issue as my copy of Jawbreaker has spring loaded pegs on it, but I know my Miner 2049er cartridge has static pegs because I had to cut them years ago to trim them back so the game would seat fully into the slot to be played.

 

I think I've seen where some folks found out that if you carefully open the cartridge, you can sometimes swap the pegs around because they were molded with shorter pegs on the opposite side that is inside the cartridge? But I've not checked this for myself.

The issue about the pegs is understood @-^CrossBow^- 

 

However, in the instance the cartridge shell is the issue, or a combination of both pegs and shell, what was posted provides an explanation with pictures of a possible solution for allowing the cartridge shell to fit.