I've seen numerous people wanting to know how to take apart their EZFlash carts. So I decided to take mine apart to see how easy it was.
It's quite easy to do, with only 1 screw needing to be removed. Click on the images for the full sized versions. Be warned, the full sized images are quite large, most over 2meg in size.
Follow along :
First, just a few images of the cart from various sides.
The top of the cart.
The bottom of the cart.
The back of the cart with partially removed manufacturing date sticker.
The front of the cart.
Remove the manufacturing date security sticker. Why is it called a security sticker ?
The sticker will come apart in little pieces when you try to peal it off. Dont worry about it,
just scrape it all off to reveal the small screw.
Peal off the serial number sticker from the front. This one won't come apart like the security sticker and can be put back on if need be.
Carefully take the screw out using a philips head screwdriver. I found the screw to be quite stiff, so it will require a small amount of force. Be careful not to strip the head of the screw or you won't be able to get it out at all.
Then turn the cart over so the top is facing towards you and slide the top cover forwards (towards the cart pins). It will only move a few millimeters before you can lift it off.
That was the hard part. The actual cart now just lifts out of the back plate.
Here is a nice closeup of the front of the cart.
You can clearly see the battery on the left, and several chips on the right.
There is another chip under the battery, but at this stage I don't know what it is.
The details of the chip have been scraped off of it. I don't have a picture due to the delicate nature of the battery connectors, I didn't want to bend them up and down too often.
The chip on the far right can be clearly seen as "EliteMT", their website can be found here. There is no information on Elite's site about this chip, but it appears to be a TSOP flash style chip. This could mean it's either the 256Mbit EzFlash or where the loader.bin is stored, which would mean it's a 32Mbit or 4Mbyte chip. My guess would be it's the storage space for the loader.bin, given that all the information I can find points to it being a TSOP style chip. Another brands datasheet can be found here.
The chip in the middle is marked as "E28F36 BVP-10 18D47". I couldn't find any useful information on this chip at all.
On the reverse side of the cart there are three chips.
The two on the left are Spansion Flash Memory chips. Manufactured by AMD & Fujitsu, Spansion appears to be a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu. I can find no information about those chips, however, considering there are two of them, I would take a very good educated guess and say these are the two 64mbit NOR flash memory chips.
On the right hand side there is the 1Gbit Samsung chip. This is the NAND chip, and information can be found here. The product specification sheet can be found here.
Whilst I had the cart apart, I thought it would be nice to test the battery.
As you can see, it's a 3v battery. In one the pictures shown above you can make out "2020 Panasonic", a bit of searching and it's this battery "Panasonic ML2020 3V 45mAh". Taken from Simpower.co.nz: "The Rechargeable super compact ML lithium secondary batteries feature a new configuration in which a manganese compound oxide is used for the positive electrode, and a lithium/aluminum alloy for the electrode (ML Type)"
Replacement batteries can be found in various places on the net, and any 3V rechargeable battery should work fine, so long as it's the same 20mm*2mm dimesion size.
For those experiencing the occasional contact issue with their carts, a single piece of paper or Post-it Note placed in the bottom part of the casing should prove beneficial. I placed mine about 1mm from the edge of the cart and cut off the top few mm from a small off brand Post-It.
Put the PCB back into the bottom of the casing, put the top back on, and screw the two halves together again, and you get something like this.
I hope this has helped a few people out.
