Over the course of the week, the remaining items were delivered. This work week was agonizingly slow, so seeing things arrive day after day kept me looking towards the weekend.
The first few things to arrive. Started by placing the labels the cartridge shells. Only moved Mega Man Battle Network 3 White because its board was in pristine shape.
After that, it was a matter of waiting for the boxes to also arrive. They eventually did, almost got damaged in the mailbox, though. Assembling them is actually tricky when doing it for the first time, but I’m really pleased with the quality. Actually, both the labels and the boxes are really good despite them being reproductions.
I think I previously mentioned about collector’s value and how I don’t really care much for it. I still stand by that thought. Yeah, I know the real ones have varying levels of wear due to their age and whatnot, but these look too good to not have. I’m not building a massive collection of games. All I want is to just showcase the ones I own. The ones that were staples of my childhood. There’s a possibility I may add a few extras, but it’s just nice to see. I also got plastic covers for them. It’s not the same as the plastic wrap that came with retail boxes, but it’s a good way to protect the boxes and give them that “new glossy finish”.
Additionally, the GBxCart RW flasher also arrived. Its barebones PCB appearance tends to be intimidating, but it’s really simple to use and works really well. Needing to disconnect before removing or inserting a cartridge is a bit of a pain, but just a minor inconvenience. I went ahead and dumped all of the cartridges I had. It’s a bit redundant with already having known good dumps, but these are my dumps. As a bonus, I also backed up the few remaining save files I had left. The good stuff may have been long gone, but I can at least preserve what remains.
And today I finally soldered in the new batteries. I am just a mere beginner at soldering with virtually no prior experience, so please forgive the dodgy work. It’s not really a hard procedure, but I lack the experience and dexterity with soldering tools. I know I did some things wrong since I struggled to keep the batteries in place while attempting to solder them to the pads. All that matters is that they work (and they do!). I was surprised to find out that Pokémon Red was holding a CR2025 battery. I don’t know if it’s a later revision board since it’s the same board that Silver uses, while Yellow has a different design and goes with the smaller CR1616 battery.
I was going to replace all of their batteries, but the battery in my Red cart was still reading 3V. I already have a backup of my save data; my last surviving Game Boy save data. I’m opting to just wait until it finally gives out before replacing it. I know that my Blue cart had lost its save data long ago. I will assume it also used the same type of board as Yellow, but I’ll never know since that game vanished a long time ago.
All in all, this has been a really nice project so far. Next up will be to paint my room (a once easy task, now made much harder with the newer stuff I’ve added) and replace the wall shelves.
SNES reproduction boxes will also arrive at a later date. May try to look for console boxes, depending on how much space I gain with the shelves.
Sparky out.