A few months ago I announced dbCards which are release HuCards for homebrew software (dbCard (TurboGrafx-16 Homebrew Flash Cart) Prototype Fully Working). While this was great, the form-factor was wrong. It just didn't look like a HuCard. Therefore, I set out to design a second prototype which would have the look and feel of a traditional HuCard.
I designed a plastic holder using FreeCAD and had a few prototypes 3D printed. Then, I designed a PCB which would, in conjunction with the plastic holder, form an equivalent to a HuCard. There are two pockets in the plastic holder: the first pocket is the depth of the PCB and the second pocket is the depth of the components on the PCB. As can be seen in the pictures below it all fits together quite nicely!
Being constricted to the HuCard mechanical shape makes it harder to burn software onto the dbCard. Currently, I simply pre-burn the TSOP48 Flash ICs in my TL866CS before soldering them. For the future however, I do have plans to burn the chips only after they have been soldered by using a programming header which I've populated on the dbCard PCB. Here's a quick video showing a working dbCard!
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