SAMD Fusse Loader Brings Together a SAM D21 Board with CR2032 Backpack

Engineer and project builder Electronrancher (Wemakin, LLC) has designed a loader dongle as a platform for him to back up the data from NAND storage on Nintendo’s popular Switch gaming console.

Like some others have done, he spliced an Adafruit Trinket microcontroller with a CR2032 battery board, but found the design too “large and hacky” for his purposes. He instead decided to integrate them into a single PCB, and thus his SAMD Fussee Loader was born.

The SAMD Fusse Loader packs most all of the hardware found on the SAM D21 — Microchip’s 32-bit Arm Cortex-M0+ processor with 256KB flash, 32KB SRAM, and an operating speed of up to 48MHz. It also sports a USB B port that acts as a virtual flash drive when plugged into USB and the reset button is double-clicked.

In the project phase of his build, Electronrancher used Microsoft’s UF2-samd bootloader, which allows for reading and writing firmware (including Hekate, ReiNX, and SX) using the drag-and-drop method for smooth implementation and swap-out.

As far as bootloaders for the Switch are concerned, you can use Fusse Gelee or UF2 (which was used during the project phase) to access NAND data. Electronrancher explicitly warns against piracy or unauthorized backups stating, “Backup loading and other hacking can be detected, resulting in a ban from online gaming. Don’t do anything you don’t understand, and don’t engage in hardware hacking unless you accept the risk that you alone are responsible for any damage you may cause to your equipment.”

Those interested in more information on his project build (complete with files) and the steps he took to create the SAMD Fusse Launcher can check out his project page, and those looking to buy one of the devices can find them on Tindie for $15 (when they come back in stock).