Modding my Gameboy Pocket (kind of tutorial-ish)

Chocolate-Milk wrote:

Look at that beauty. New GB shell/buttons, funnyplaying IPS, power capacitor, cleanpower and cleanamp boards.

It took me about five hours, it still has a low hiss with the sound off and it makes a weird *vvvwip* when it powers off, but I did it, god damn it.

Awesome, good work! How did you find removing and replacing the bits?

Victor Mildew wrote:Awesome, good work! How did you find removing and replacing the bits?

Fiddly, but doable. The capacitor came right out with no bother, but the power board was a ballache. No amount of wick or pumping would get rid of the solder, so I ended up clipping the legs and picking them out with tweezers. The case was made for that particular screen, so installing that was a breeze.

Not entirely convinced I did the cleanamp properly, but ho hum.

Looks lovely.

Edit: actually I'm not going to mention that because it might drive you absolutely nuts :slol:

It's to do with it being aftermarket case, of course.

Oh my god, actually it's close enough. The 'e' in Nintendo's logo is strawberry floating weird.

It does look a bit off compared to the original, but it's so small I don't think it'll bother me! :lol:

What does bother me a little bit though, is that there's a noticeable rectangular border that shines through around the Gameboy Color logo when the brightness is up above 2, because there's a block of white pixels on the screen underneath to light it up. It'll probably be less obvious with a different colour, mind, but now that I've noticed I'll never stop looking for it! :slol:

That looks gorgeous :wub:

Great game choice BTW, I've specifically put that in my gameboy colour a bunch of times and powered it off the wall. The pack is ridiculous sticking out of an SP.

I felt 7 years old again booting that up. It's still got my old save on it as well. :wub:

The rumble doesn't work anymore, but I couldn't find any info on repairing it.

Seen a few YouTube videos on that IPS mod and it looks incredible. Not a rabbit hole I want to fall down though, gooseberry fool looks expensive!

no, seriously

So how deep are you now?

Pictures please!

Green Gecko wrote:So how deep are you now?

I'm about £280 in the hole. :slol:

It sounds bad, but that's including the GBC and GBA themselves, the full works for each (shells, buttons, IPS screens, audio boards, battery pack, etc.), plus all the soldering accoutrements.

Pictures of the GBA process are forthcoming!

GBA pics ahoy! :toot:

Spoilered for their mahoosive size, because my phone has decided I'm not allowed to choose the resolution for my own photos, and imgur's resizing is pants.

Here we have the donor console and all the mods about to be crammed in: Funnyplaying IPS screen, purple shell made specifically for said screen, new buttons/membranes, new speaker, and Retrosix's Cleanamp Pro, Dehum/Dehiss kit, and Cleanjuice rechargeable battery. Quite the laundry list!

First off, I popped the motherboard out of the original case. I installed the IPS screen into the new shell, which would have been simple enough, had I not kept smudging the inside of the sodding lens. :lol:

Then, a quick test to make sure the new screen was working properly, which it was!

The dehum/dehiss kit came next. A flexible little PCB thing almost like a ribbon cable, all it required was a bit of tinning on the corners, and then it just sat comfortably on top of the motherboard.

The Cleanamp audio board went much the same way. Tack down the corners, attach the speaker, job done!

Then we can start to put everything back together, but not before soldering some wires to the shoulder buttons so that we can alter the brightness level.

Last but not least, after the case had been buttoned back up, we drop in the USB-C rechargeable battery, which couldn't be any easier.

And there we have it! The screen looks bloody brill, but in hindsight I should have gone for a different coloured shell, as this one is quite a bit lighter than the original purple GBA. Ah well!

Chocolate-Milk wrote:GBA pics ahoy! ...

Wow! Really good work, CM - your updated system looks ace; what a lovely screen!

I admire the skills needed to carry out this kinda tech change. Hope you enjoy playing on your GBA :-)

.

That looks great, well done! Am I right in thinking those screens just sit in a bracket, so they can be removed? If so, you can always just get a new shell, maybe a transparent purple might be more like it (if you can't get GameCube purple which is what I assume you wanted).

With the pocket screen, you have to stick it in place, meaning you get one chance to get it perfect or it's ruined, plus you have that one shot to not get any dust or things either on the screen face, or the back of the lens. It's tense stuff!

Victor Mildew wrote:Am I right in thinking those screens just sit in a bracket, so they can be removed? If so, you can always just get a new shell, maybe a transparent purple might be more like it (if you can't get GameCube purple which is what I assume you wanted).

Not as such, no. It has a little piece of plastic on one side to help with alignment, but it's basically the same as your Pocket with the adhesive foam around the edges.

It's quite a thin strip, so I managed to pry it off a couple of times with a spudger and a very delicate touch while I was battling with grubby streaks. Whether it'll go so well now that it's all settled in remains to be seen.

Looks great bud.

Not been following the thread too closely, but it's been in the back of my mind. Been wanting to sort out my GBA for a long time now.

So I just pulled the trigger on essentially the same stuff as Chocolate-Milk did. Going for a full Black shell with white buttons look for my GBA.

Think I might even do the modding on stream, same idea as the LEGO build stream I did.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:...Think I might even do the modding on stream, same idea as the LEGO build stream I did.

Your Lego build stream was neat and I like the sound of a GBA build one!

Modding my Gameboy Pocket (kind of tutorial-ish)

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