Gamecube to Game Boy Micro Cable - Instructions in here

halbox252: You say the official Nintendo Micro Link Cables are in a lot of stores over there, eh? How much are they, and are they in large quantities? UncleBob might know where I'm going with this...
 
From one of the main electronics chains over here (Yodobashi) the micro link cable will cost you 1,260 yen which at todays rates is 10.94USD. They don't seem to have a huge stock in store, but their website is pretty good. Order enough of them (over 100 bucks worth) and shipping to my place would be free. Then there's the cost of getting them stateside. Not sure what that would be but if you're interested in getting a load sent over I could look into it.

But looking at the offical US Nintendo site they're coming in at 10 bucks (plus P&P), so don't think it'll be any cheaper doing it this way.

FYI, link to japanese page:
(http://www.yodobashi.com/enjoy/more/i/cat_219_224_46122289/48074591.html)

Uncle Bob - Which cable? Can't find a link... boredom at work must be making me blind...
 
Ah but the difference is that I can't order anymore from the US Nintendo site (limit 5 per person) so I'm tapped out. Of course, at that price and after shipping to the US I think the cost would be too high, but thanks for looking into it.
 
5 per person?? wow... that's whacked....

If we get a dramatic shift in the exchange rate we may be in a better position. I'll hunt around a little to see if there's any at a "discount retailer" but that'll probably only save about a buck... I guess the official items are pretty well price fixed.
 
Troz I've got your cable in my mail today. Excellent work! It works like a charme! Using GBmicro as GC Controller is awesome! Thank for your excellent work! Pleased to deal with you! ;)
 
i got a GB Micro yesterday and found this page on the wiki...Great Work Troz!

damn Nintendo not releasing an offical GC2GBM Cable:bomb:

for the cables, i assume most of you do not know some facts in china where i'm living in, accessories sold here are mostly NOT licensed by nintendo, take the GC -> GBA Cable for example, i can get it at a price about 2~3USD from local dealers...

and the offical cables are incredibly expensive here, about 30USD, they are not offically launched by nintendo but by smuggle. yes smuggle not for low price but for products that can't got in legal way.


i'll get some cables this weekend and post the pictures here, see if i can get a chance to get it work with my precious pink GBM limited...so cheap, won't break my heart if i break the cable huh:D well, for the low price, it's quality is also poor...

sorry for my poor english, my native is chinese...
 
just the ship will cost 20USD at least i think, and those unlicensed accessories are usaully at very low quality... i'm quite sure that you will not be satisfied with it.

why did not nintendo release such a product? the offical Game Link Cable Adapter is vice-versa and totally no use...hope some bigger 3rd-party accessory company(like HORI) will release such a product...
 
Ouch... $20 shipping for a $2 product... dang.
I'm familiar with the company name that is shown on the product and they usually make decent (not spectacular) quality accessories. In fact, I have their mobile monitor for my Game Cube, and it does a pretty decent job.

I've sent them an e-mail in hopes for more infomation on this particular product. If I find anything else out, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

As far as another company making something... I don't think any of the major US companies will, since the micro is about dead here... I dunno about overseas though.

I see that this product is on an auction site - does it say if the seller has multiples of them for sale? Perhaps, if there's enough interest, we could work something out where I (or someone) could import 20-ish of them and split the cost of shipping them into the US up a bit...
 
JimmyZ - just wondering... Does that auction say anything about this item being homemade or such? It's doubtful, but I cannot seem to find *anything* about this product *anywhere*, including Intec's website.

Granted, that doesn't necessarly mean much of anything, but...
 
i dunno :( i'm contacting with the seller, he says he didn't know this "thing" is compatible with GC-GBA cable or not, "should be", he said...

anyhow, i'll take a try, just 2USD haha:D
 
Ah, I am bummed I just barely missed the e-bay auctions. I am trying to get my hands on enough GBAs and cables so that me and my room mates can play four swords and final fantasy.

I have zero experience in soldering, so this will be my first time...

Wish me luck! haha.
 
got that convertor, but the shape of the shell is strange, i can't get it connected to the GC2GBA cable... i must get a saw to cut off a bit of the shell to get it connected i think...
 
Troz1820 can you tell me wich wirecolor belongs to the wich pinnumber on the original gbm cable used with the nyko cable solution.

You can use the pinnumbers as used below when looking at the cable connector form above. (or is this not the official numbering)

__________
| 12345678 |
\_________/
 
I can't tell you which pinnumber belongs to what with the Nyko cable since I don't have anymore to check with. The first page of this thread has the color of each wire. Aside from that I can't help you.

I made this conversion chart which might be helpful for some:

gbm-gba.gif
 
Troz,

finally bought my cables and am trying my hand at soldering... got the wires hooked up to the gamecube adapter... but wondering about the microlink cable... am I ok to cut one side of the wire off??

and then which side do I need to solder the new wires onto? same side as the micro-plug? or on the other side of the chip? does the chip do anything?

Thanks...
 
Agh, my micro cable has triwing screws, but I dont have a triwing screwdriver. I have checked all the local hardware stores and radio shack but none of them have them... :(
 
Since nobody seems to have listed the actual pin outs on the gameboy units - here is my diagram. I've successfully put a micro-style link plug on an F2A USB linker and can confirm it works fine:

gblink.png


EDIT - Ah, seen Troz's post above. oops. I think it matches up so that's good.
EDIT2 - Hmm, it doesn't seem to match so I'm not sure Troz's diagram is correct. His info earlier in the thread certainly wasn't because I tried wiring it like that and it didn't work. Mine is definitely tested working, and what I'm describing here are the actual sockets on the Gameboy units, not some particular brand of cable. I managed to get the information from here but in my diagram I've labelled what each pin does rather than just showing an equivalence:
http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?do=show&id=schematics%3Agbmtogba
 
After a few false starts and a couple of mistakes, I managed to follow the instructions and bulit my own GMC/GBM cable... Works like a dream...

If a white-collar desk-jockey like me can do it, anyone can. Pretty basic stuff once someone's told you how to do it.

Troz, thanks for doing the ground work...
 
Hi, another user here who found this thread and decided to make his own cable.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone involved in making this cable a reality.

and....

Since the GBM 2 player cable that I had to buy had two ends, I decided to buy an extra GBA -> GC cable and make two cables. I figured I was already doing one cable, I might as well make two.

I've listed it on ebay, and I figured I'd mention it to the folks here in case they are interested (after all, it wouldn't exist if it weren't for CAG). Please don't think this is spam or anything, as I only have this one cable and I'm only trying to give back. If the mods feel this is inappropriate, feel free to remove this part of the message.

the ebay auction is here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270033836280
 
Hey there, new member here.

Autoshoes-
I have the same cables here, but my Pelican cable seems to have 7 wires in it.
I was wondering if you could describe the process you used to make your two cables?
Did you just cut the Micro link cable in half and each end for two different GCN/GBA-GBM cable?
I have lots of the Nintendo GCN-GBA link cables to mess with, but I don't want to destroy them with my lack of skill.

I hate to mess with the little pins in the chip-board thing, as I don't trust my soldering skills that much.
I was hoping there was a way to connect the wires from the Pelican All-in-One cable to my Micro cable without touching the boards in any of the cables.

I read the entire thread and noticed someone else posted info on the pelican cable and upon reviewing the data provided, I found out what the spare wire is for, but I'm still clueless on how to attach my Micro cable wires up to them.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

My brothers and I love playing Four Swords on the Game Cube, but our SPs have been MIA for months, so need to find a way to connect our Micros to the Game Cube for us all to play again.
 
Thanks so much for this thread. :)
Using the information supplied here, I created my own cable and it works like a dream! So much better than my old, dark GBA screen!

If I can get my hands on another Pelican All-In-One cable, I will have a second cable for my bros to use using the opposite end of the Micro-to-Micro link cable.
 
Hello, Newbie here... *g*

I also recently bought myself a Gameboy Micro and was very happy to find this thread here. Although I don't really like all details of the first post (As I don't own a GBM-GBM-link cable with Hub, I absolutely didn't know, which wires from a normal cable get connected to the Cube-cable. I also wondered what 6 wires are the one *really* used and whether Cube-GND gets connected to GBM-GND or GBM-Shield), it helped me a lot researching.

I was not very surprised when I found out, that the GBM-link-port is *very* "compatible" to the GBA one, but I was pretty surprise when the wiring were in the same order (P3.3V, SO,SI,SD,SC,GND)

Unfortunately I read very much too late that the Cube-Cable needs the GBA/GBM as a power source and therefore got stuck with some link cables leaving pin1(I consider the outer pin on each side as not a part of the counting, as it is simply for recharge cable) unconnected.
Still, I didn't want to give in (even phoned Nintendo today, but didn't place an order)

So I tried some things and perhaps some of you might be interested in the results:

- Original Cube-Cable:
As the Cube provides 3.3V on the VCC2-cable I tried connecting *that* to pin1 of the GBA-Connector (and therefore to the IC-to-be-powered).
It failed. I also got a (mental) shock when my Memory Card was unreadable for a moment.

- Dual-Power:
I also own a SP and perhaps I'm not the only one who doesn't only use GBM when Cube-GBA-playing.
So I tried connecting the Power-line (Pin1 of the GBA-connector in my GBA-GC-cable) to the power-line of the Cube-GBM-to-be cable. My plan was that the SP powers it's own IC *plus* the IC for the GBM. I didn't add extra GND-wiring between both adapters as they are (should be) grounded by the Cube.
It worked.
Disadvantage: You have a direct cable between GBA and GBM. Also I'm unsure which length as allowd.

- Unofficial Cube-GBA-cable.
Well, I had this open for the previous try and so I decided to go for it.
Same as with Nintendo-Cable: connected VCC2 to Pin1 of GBA-connector (needless to say: all other wires were connected to their equivalent on the GBM-cable)
Surprise: It worked.
It seems like the unofficial cable I used (Big Ben Interactive) drains less power than the official Nintendo one and therefore the Cube can power the IC normally powered by the GBM. At the moment I'm breaking apart another BigBen-Cube-GBA-Cable (one was for experiment only, this one is for real) and then I will start finding out, which wires are not really used. (I don't believe that Cube-connection uses all wires). I'll report back, then.

Fazit:
You might be able to use cheap GBM-link-cables (I used "Dragon". Has the advantage of having all four cables with 6 wires - nr 6 is shield, not Power - so you might make 4 cables with one of these) with cheap Cube-GBA/SP-cables by letting the Cube power the ICs.
Still I think I should place a warning: I have no idea, how much power the Cube can provide for such a thing, whether it can power more than one IC and if such procedure has any other bad results.

I'm sitting in germany (Europa). I don't want to promise anything, yet, but if I start trusting these cables (and find some way to take apart these cables more easily) I could start building and sending cables from here.

Greets,

TCC
 
Just a quick update:

I ordered two of these Micro Link-Cables from Nintendo (germany). The guy at the telephone told me that I could only order "customary" amounts of these cable - two - which is a rather small quantity... as you already need three of them to link 4 GBMs.

But he also told me that I could order larger quantitys directly at their repair center, so perhaps this might be an option.

Price for them here is 10 Eur plus 3.5 Eur shipping.

As I mentioned the absence of exact pin numbers in the first post (although the pictures seem to have gone offline at the moment), I wanted to post my personal experience with that cable with special regard to the pinning at the hub:

Master is the end of the cable without the special plastic. This is because this end is supposed to be connected to hubs.
Slave is the end of the cable with the special plastic. This is to prevent this end to be connected to hubs.

When the small PCB lies before you, with Master cable left and Slave cable right, the Hub connector should point away from you and be on the lower side.

Hub connector:
The four large dots are shielding.
The eight tiny dots should be counted from left to right
X 2 4 6
1 3 5 X

with standard GBA Link-Port pins:
1. Power
2. Serial Out
3. Serial In
4. Serial Data
5. Serial Clock
6. GND
The two X are the two outermost pins. They are used be power supply/recharge adapters only (and not used in linking)

Cables:
The Master cable is connected to the six solder dots on the left side
(large dot to the left, two small dots in the first line, three small dots in the second line)

45
(6)123

The slave cable is connected to the six solder dots on the right side
(two small dots in the first line, three small dots in the second line, large dot to the right)

54
321(6)

Large solder dot is in (parenthes)

The pin numbering is true to the standard as mentioned above

The wires on both cables have the same colors (numbers as above):
blue: 1
red: 2
orange: 3
brown: 4
green: 5
pure metal/shield: 6 GND

That means, in contrast to other cables the shielding from the connector has no wire. On the other hand, those cables feature the power line needed be some applications (e.g. the Gamecube-GBA cable)

I refuse to trace the lines on the PCB as the original cables use ICs and resistors and other hardware so can't be re-built easily. Also other cables show that extra hardware is not really needed.

Note: This is the wiring in my cable. I doubt that other original Nintendo-GBM-cables use different wires or different colors but please reality-check whether the information here matches your cables before damaging hardware. I'm not responsible for things gone wrong.

---

About my cube-powered cable: We had a long session yesterday with 4 Gameboys connected (one of them Micro with that cable) and had no problems.
Still, with the Nintendo cables I should be prepared to build GBM-powered Cube-GBM connection cables.

Greets,

TCC

PS. Sorry for the "double post" (if that is... with the time between)
 
i just bought a gba micro link cable converter from the nintendo online store so i can use a gba cable to transfer data from my gba sp to my gba micro....

so my question is if i buy a gba to gc cable and jus use my gba micro link cable converter, would i just be able to us micro on with my gc to play final fantasy or 4 swords, without performing this little operation on the cables?

has any one ever tried this??
 
Hello,

As far as I know, this converter allows you to use a GBM-Link cable for connecting a GBM to "older" GBAs.

GBM --GBM-Link-cable--- --converter-- GBA/SP

it is the GBA/SP-link port that is converted to "small". You won't get a connector to connect the Cube-cable to.

If there was a converter like this:

GBM --converter-- --GBA-link-cable-- GBA/SP

things would be a lot easier.

Of course, I may be wrong but I've never seen an official Nintendo converter for using "older" cables with the Micro and I doubt that Nintendo started producing them in the last week.

Greets,

TCC
 
And here is what Nintendo comments on this converter:
"
The Game Boy micro Converter Connector allows the Game Boy micro Link Cable to link to a Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP.
"

As said, you use a Micro Link cable.

Sorry.

I believe, if things were such easy (well, Nintendo could have made them that easy), this whole thread would be useless.

Of course, you can build such a converter cable yourself. You simply need an official Nintendo Micro Link cable and a plug for the older cables (like from a defect GBA or from a Link Cable hub)... and some soldering experience.
I believe, such a converter (non-Nintendo) was mentioned on page 8 or so but it was never answered, whether this converter works with the cube cable.

Greets,

TCC
 
But could some who made/purchased the Nyko GCN->GBM cable tell me which pin on the GCN connects to wich pin on the GBM, or someone with a Nyko GBA->GCN connector tell me which wire (Color) connects to which pin on the game cube. This would greatly help me in making my own. (I plan on doing detailed specs of this process, and then posting them.)
 
I am pretty much sure that there is no way of having a direct wire-to-wire-connection between Cube and GBA. Those ICs must have some function. *g*
So I guess they're hidden in the Nyko cable as well. As far as I know (I'd love to get my hands on one of those cables, anyone knows whether you can get them in germany?) they look like a plug on Cube side and one on GBA side - instead of the bulky Nintendo-Adapters that cover the power charge connector on SP

Weren't cable colors given in the first post of this thread?

In other news:

I cut my original Nintendo-GBM-Link cable to build 6-wire-Cube-adapters. Wasn't too hard (and I even got a use for the remaining Hub connector).
In contrast to the original idea I cut away the GBA-connector and solder the GBM-wires through the board (is always more secure, and having two plugs on one adapter is always risky... you never know when one of your friends tries to connect both).
But:
I strongly recommend using BigBen Cube-GBA-Converters for this. it is *MUCH* easier to cut away the old plug and your soldering area is much less clattered with other components.

For the stats:
Yesterday, 4-people-session,
1 SP standard cable
1 Micro, Original-Nintendo-Cube-GBA-Converter converted with original Nintendo-Link-plug.
1 Micro, BigBen-Cube-GBA-Converter converted with original Nintendo-Link-plug.
1 Micro, BigBen-Cube-GBA-Converter, converted with "cheap" 5-wire link-plug (therefore Cube-powered)

>5 hours, no problems.

btw: I built myself some "tools" (plug to banana-plugs) to check out wiring of pure connection cables.. so if I know where to get such a Nyko cable, I could investigate further.

Greets,

TCC
 
Since every company uses a different color code for the wires, I am trying to find out which pin on the cube goes to which pin on the GBA. I imagine the reason the direct wire does not work with any thing but the official Nintendo one, and the Nyko one, is because two wires are missing. If I would find out which pin on the cube end goes to witch pin on the gba from someone who has already made the Nyko version, then I could repost how to had the extra two wires needed.
 
[quote name='Berzerk']Since every company uses a different color code for the wires, I am trying to find out which pin on the cube goes to which pin on the GBA. I imagine the reason the direct wire does not work with any thing but the official Nintendo one, and the Nyko one, is because two wires are missing. If I would find out which pin on the cube end goes to witch pin on the gba from someone who has already made the Nyko version, then I could repost how to had the extra two wires needed.[/quote]

I am 100% sure (that doesn't mean that I'm correct) that there is no waz to directlz connect the GBA-Link-port with the Cube. In the Nintendo-Adapter there are ICs (at the GBA connector), in the BigBen-Adapters there are ICs (at the GBA connector) and I'm very very sure that in the Nyko cables there are those ICs, too - perhaps hidden somewhere in the cable or at the Cube-side-connector, but definitely in there.

Let me get my hands on one of these cables and I can tell for really sure, perhaps even find out where the ICs are hidden.
If you have such a cable, yourself, you could use an Ohm-metre or connection checker to find out that there is no direct connection but some electronics in between.

The reason why you can't use cheap GBM-Link-cables to build your Cube-adapter is that those ICs need to be powered and only the official Nintendo-GBM-Link-cables provide the wire for power.

Perhaps I didn't get your question right (in that case please specify), but I hope that answers your questions.

Greetings,

TCC
 
So the Micros require a power, but the GBA ans GBA SP don't? That doesn't make sense, but then Nintendo never does....The things is, I don't think the direct through capeles have an IC. That is what I am getting at. (The Nyko ones) If they did, then they would have to be built right into the connector pin. Based on the size of the IC, I don't see how they could fit it in either end of that cord. Also, the Official Micro-Micro link cables use an IC, but my old Madcatz GBA/SP-GBA/SP does not use an IC, so I am thinking that Nintendo added the IC just to be r3tarded. If some one has an old gba-gba official Nintendo cable, and it has an IC, then my theory is even more likely.

The question I am trying to get answered is, what is the PIN out on the game cube. When you plug in a controller, what pin does what? When you plug in a wavebird, what pin doew what? When you plug in a gba link cable, what pin does what? I am not interested in the game boy side. I want to know which pin is Serial in, and which is serial out on the game cube. Which one has power going through it, etc. That way I can translate the pins to my Micro, and if an IC IS required, I can find out what type, and pick it up.
 
[quote name='Berzerk']So the Micros require a power, but the GBA ans GBA SP don't? That doesn't make sense, but then Nintendo never does....The things is, I don't think the direct through capeles have an IC. That is what I am getting at. (The Nyko ones) If they did, then they would have to be built right into the connector pin. Based on the size of the IC, I don't see how they could fit it in either end of that cord. Also, the Official Micro-Micro link cables use an IC, but my old Madcatz GBA/SP-GBA/SP does not use an IC, so I am thinking that Nintendo added the IC just to be r3tarded. If some one has an old gba-gba official Nintendo cable, and it has an IC, then my theory is even more likely.[/QUOTE]
The Cube-GBA-cables require a power supply from the GBA / SP as well (if you open up a converter cable, you can trace the appropiate pin). If you really want to try, you could build a GBA Link-extension cable without the power wire. It should work with most link cables but not with the Cube-GBA-converter.

About "Nyko-cable, ICs or not?":
Nyko-cable uses six wires. So GBA-power is connected somewhere. As I strongly don't believe in the GBA powering some part of the Cube or Nyko using more wires than necessary, I still remain on my "Nyko-cable, ICs - yes" point of view. Those ICs are not very large and I guess with newer techniques Nyko might have smaller or less ones than Nintendo "in the old days", so I think they're in there.
Still, I really want to get and examine one of those by now.

Why Nintendo built electronics into the GBM-Link cable?
I have no idea. I don't think, it's necessary - as you can build those cables without ICs. Still I guess we should be grateful because if it wasn't for those ICs, we might have no GBM-cables with all six wires at all and this whole thread perhaps would have never been written.

[quote name='Berzerk']
The question I am trying to get answered is, what is the PIN out on the game cube. (...)
[/QUOTE]
http://www.int03.co.uk/crema/hardware/gamecube/gc-control.htm

I hope that helps.
I haven't read all of it but it seems like some of the main questions are answered.

Greets,

TCC
 
Hey troz, I just got a wii for christmas and can finally enjoy everything I missed on gamecube, I bought four gba and cables so me and all my friends can play, we honestly play loz:four swords daily, Is there anyway I could send you materials and a generous compensation so you could make me 2 cables...I'd love to show up to our game night with a micro to laugh at my bastard friends who cuccoo me to death, when they arent throwing me into a row of bombs........bastards.
 
I made a second GCN - Micro cable after picking up a second All-In-One cable and using the left-over half of my Micro - Micro cable. I noticed that in one All-In-One there was an orange wire, and the other, there was a white instead.

Using the key posted somewhere earlier in this thread, I made the second one assuming that the white wire replaced the orange. It worked.

I just thought I'd throw that note out there for anyone who is interested in making their own with an All-In-One cable by Pelican. I didn't have to solder anything and could use both halves of my Micro to Micro cable, so I think the All-In-One method is more economic than the original method. Especially for those who are worried about messing things up with the soldering iron.
all you need are some scissors, electrical tape, and maybe a little plastic box to house the wire connections to keep things prettier.
 
anyone willing to sell me one of these cables? i just got a GBM, and i didnt know it couldnt hook up to a gc. if anyone has one just pm thanks
 
TCCPhreak - Do you mind taking a few photos of the BigBen link cable's circuitboard? I've had no luck replicating your success using the Gamecube to power the ICs with the various GC->GBA link cables I have.
 
Argh, I've destroyed two GBA Link cables trying to get TCCPhreak's method to work!

However, in better news, I've gotten a 3rd party GBM cable to work by completely disassembling the micro connector on it, removing all the hot glue (I hate hot glue), and soldering new wires to the tiny tiny plugs. I'll take a picture when I make my second attempt at it later this week. If I can get this method working consistantly I would be able to build more cables...

Anyone know a good way to remove hot glue aside from scraping it off little by little?
 
Hey, I'm pretty much new to this forums myself. I just recently bought myself a GBM to play those connectivity games with my nephews, Like Four Swords and FF:CC. But i just found out that the GBA to GC connector doesn't work for it, so i searched around google and caught on to this thingy. I was wondering, Troz, if you were still doing those orders or services. If you are, I can send my cables in, and pay the additional fees for your service. Thanks and i hope you reply soon.
 
I'm working on a new solution that won't require the official Nintendo Micro Cable, as you can see in my previous post. I want to make certain the method is reliable before sending any cables out. Once I'm pleased with the results I will be once again selling a limited number of cables.

If you have both a GC->GBA connector and a Official Nintendo Micro Cable and don't feel like waiting, send me a PM and we can work the details out on getting a cable made for you.
 
Just an update for all still waiting for another batch of cables: The new method I spoke of above takes around 30-45 minutes of my time to prep just the Micro end of the cable. It would take much less time if there was an easy way of removing hot glue but as it stands, I have to chisel away at the glue slowly. If I try to go too fast or cut too much I render the cable useless.

Basically I'm taking the 4-player GBM link cables sold at various places, cutting the head open, and re-soldering the wires to the appropriate pins. Getting to the wire/pins is where chiseling away at the hot glue comes into play.
 
The GBM cable you've linked to will not work without major modifications. You'd need to crack the head of the connector open and re-solder the wires to the appropriate pins. In the end you're left with a mess, and believe me, I've tried to make it look nice. If you know how to remove hot glue (see posts above) then it would be easier...

The only cable I've found to work out of the box is the official GBM cable.
 
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