I've been thinking about getting a mold made for NES carts (and possibely SNES carts).  It would be nice to have reproduction carts that were made out of colored plastic and not spray painted, as well as having access to carts that didn't require scavenging and destroying old carts.  I have been thinking about this for my own projects, but unfortunately the cost in getting the mold made is prohibitive for just a few carts.

Now I know there must be others that would be interested in such a cause, and instead of going the route of manufacturing a mold and trying to make money (I'm sick of how expensive fun is supposed to be), I thought I'd try and make this a community mold where it is available to the community to produce carts at cost (or near cost, to cover the cost of the mold).  Not sure how this could work, but the thought of allowing community access to the mold for projects sounds great on paper, but I'm not sure how practical it would be (cost wise and logistics).  Recovering the cost of the mold is all I would care about, either through communuity investment or selling enough carts to make up the cost.   It would be great to see legit red/white/gold repro carts out there for people's projects.

Is this a worthwhile project to take on or a waste of time.  I know there are other injection molded carts out there, so an idea like this may be shot down, but I thought I'd ask the guys that matter anyway (you).

I have 3D CAD models of the carts I'm going to mold, and am also curious about community input about what they would like to see on the insides of the cart for mounting boards etc.

I'm pretty sure that Brian (bunnyboy) already has molds from his work on RetroUSB.com.

The trick is that you need to find enough people that want the same color to sell out an order of a specific color, since there is cost to "tool up" production beyond just having the molds cut, that ultimately results in a minimum allowable order.

The molds themselves are expensive enough that you would be better off working out a bulk discount (from one-off retail price) through somebody who has already made that investment.

I seen those molds, but wasn't looking for clear plastic (and most are discontinued or temporarily unavailable). Perhaps contacting a mold owner would a way to go.

Your best bet would be to contact him through RetroUSB's website

On RetroUSB is says basically "I don't reply to crap. I don't even read retrousb's email directly" Best way is to message him via IRC on #nesdev on efnet.

Yea, you can get any color or clarity of plastic if you are willing to put in a big enough order.

Aaron, again, where does it say what you are saying in this statement?



From RetroUSB

"Email - Send mail to [email protected]. Emails are not answered by bunnyboy, please be patient waiting for a reply! You may also want to try an alternate address in case there are spam filter problems. Spam filled domains like hotmail.com are not likely to make it. If you do not get a reply within about a week, try sending from an alternate email address."

Tell me why someone should expect Bunnyboy himself to reply to support questions. 

So please stop with your bias misinformation, as it gets old quick.

Because he makes the products? Still, email is lowest priority AFAIK to him. And be patient means months. He has shown time and time again, he's ridiculous to get ahold of. It's not bias, it's TRUTH NA will not accept.

For the sake of NA, I'll PM this instead.

This is totally untrue. Most e-mails are answered within 2-3 days.  Thanks

I might need some blank carts here soon. Glad I came across this thread.

I had to contact them to get my powerpak repaired recently.  My emails were answered very fast.  First one was only about 8 hours later!  Also pretty fast turnaround on the repair.