MBC30-Flashcart VS AGS_LIPO

Shell is cloud gaming store and label is nextstopplease. The board is hdr's design and those are not sellable sorry Link to hdr incase you want to make your own https://github.com/HDR/MBC30-Flashcart

Indeed. I do have a few other flashcarts like this one from insideGadgets (which I use for Crystal Clear - another Gen 2 ROM hack) and an MBC30 cart designed by HDR that I built (I use this one for Pokemon Coral which is not a finished game yet). But those are expensive and I already had the Japanese carts sitting around so it made more sense to convert one of those for my Prism cart.

Ebay. These are the 2mb ones. You can spend more on 4mb ones (I used one of these to build an adapter for a crystal cart) but you're probably better off building a mbc30 cart with those.

I just did this mod using a TSOP adapter. You can also build your own PCB.

That version on OSHPark seems to be outdated, newer versions are on github https://github.com/HDR/MBC30-Flashcart

I removed the original ROM chip and soldered a new AM29F016B (2mb) flash chip to a custom tsop flex adapter I then flashed the new chip using BennVenn’s Joey jr but there’s and compatible flashes out there that’ll do the same job. You don’t have to cannibalise a Jap cart as you can order an MBC30 DIY cart Otherwise you can flash the chip prior to soldering it on the board with a different programmer. Lots of options.

MBC30:Github Repo

Insider gadgets is probably a great company, but way too expensive for what I can afford for a hobby atm (and they don't have any RTC carts available either). I found an open source alternative: https://github.com/HDR/MBC30-Flashcart

You can always order Makho's pcb yourself and source your own battery assuming you can solder: https://github.com/makhowastaken/AGS_LIPO; might make its total cheaper.

If you want an example of people making money off of other people's projects, take makho's battery mod for example, https://github.com/makhowastaken/AGS_LIPO multiple stores(ebay and otherwise) have taken that and started selling it without permission (No License does not mean you can do whatever you want with it), this also keeps happening to projects i've upload, take my MBC30 flashcarts for example https://github.com/HDR/MBC30-Flashcart, they are under a non commercial license but people keep trying to make and sell them for profit in spite of the license, this is a large part of why more and more of the work in the community has been closed source, it kills motivation for people who just want to make cool shit.

Well, I made this and it's by far the best performer in terms of battery options. The design is freely available for enthusiasts to DIY but the downside is that it does require a little bit of DIY. See my linked github repo for more info and links.

I can't see what that could be other than shitty batteries. The best options out there are makho's battery (you can build one yourself by soldering a 603048 battery to makho's custom pcb or you can buy them preassembled from somewhere like Retromodding in USA or Deadpan Robot in UK) and Helder's MegaBat800.

Definitely pick up a makho battery. You can assemble one yourself or buy preassembled from Retromodding in NA or Deadpan Robot in UK.

This is probably your best option nowadays https://github.com/makhowastaken/AGS_LIPO Little bit of soldering but having done it on my gba sp it is 100% worth it over those crappy replacements