Vectrex cartridge short

Vectrex Cartridge and Vectrex LED board

So you wanna produce a Vectrex game and you need a 32KB cartridge with high score save support? Here's your reference design! Order it as is or customize it with your own graphics. Supports 32KB and 64KB bankswitched games. Supports 32KB games with DS2431+ high score save. See Schematic for configuration options.

The RGB LED is also optional, but looks great in the translucent cartridge shells. It lights up one of 8 colors based on the Red-Green-Blue DIP switch, yes black is a color of light ;-)

What makes this Vectrex Cartridge design different from others out there? Well, the design is originally based on Frank Buss' Vectrex cart edge connector, but it has been significantly fixed. The soldermask has been removed from around all of the fingers, the fingers themselves are not as wide as Frank's, and the spacing of everything has been updated to match original carts as close as possible.

Yes these fit in Sean Kelly reproduction cartridge shells perfectly!

Also included here is a simple RGB LED board add-on. Maybe you already have a PCB but you don't have the cool LED? Easy, just add this one to the bottom. It fits perfectly under most 28 pin 32KB/64KB EPROMS.

Got a Custom PCB logo request?

Join the VEXTREME Discord server to chat with @technobly about your request

BOM and Parts ordering

All the parts are described in Bill of Materials

You can use these Digi-Key shared carts to order the parts! Vectrex Cartridge or Vectrex LED

Ordering PCB's

OSHPark is a good place to order with purple or the new "after dark" theme color scheme. You can upload the KiCad vextrex-cartridge-tall.kicad_pcb or vextrex-cartridge-short.kicad_pcb there directly. I would download this entire Github repo ZIP file first though instead of just trying to save the PCB file from your browser. Here's a shared link for Vectrex LED v1.0

Another way to order PCB's is by using the included gerbers-tall-design or gerbers-short-design and uploading those with all of the necessary specs to companies like PCBWay or JLCPCB

:pencil: Don't forget to make your board finish at least ENIG (gold flash) with a 45 degree chamfered edge. Check out my test video here on why you don't want to settle for HASL finish.

:boom: How to Build a Vectrex Game Cartridge

Or with hard gold contacts if you really want to spend some money, and make a cart that will last forever.

LICENSE

CERN OHL v2.0 Permissive - essentially do whatever you want, but if you make a ton of money off of this... buy me some coffees please! Full LICENSE here