Quick update to my post above. I added a resistor to it and it made the screen a bit more legible. I have another screen here I was going to add to my other GBC. I haven't gotten around to it yet. Looking back I saw I used the word hazy. That's not the best choice of words. I meant that it's hard to see some details on the screen. Not necessarily hazy but less clear than using a SP.
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Once again, gotta go with the loca brand.
There's way too much crap brands out there on the market and it's not easy to sort through them to get to the better quality ones.
Since Osaka disappeared from ebay, I've been looking for a similar quality brand myself.
It's good to read reviews of a brand first if some are available, but most that are cheap in price are also cheap in quality.
I've got my eye on "Octopus Glue" and "X-factor" right now, but have yet to take the plunge as of yet.
Last edited by Koji-Kendo (Nov 14, 2014 11:46 am)
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Koji-Kendo wrote:
I've got my eye on "Octopus Glue" and "X-factor" right now, but have yet to take the plunge as of yet.
I recently created an account here. I will be doing this mod shortly, but am also interested in what is the best option for LOCA is.
I might just take the plunge myself on the Octopus brand, but if you do it before me, please let us know how it turns out. Thanks!
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Ciudad de méxico, MX
Yo guys, will this work on a Classic GBA?
Thanks in advance for your answer 
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matt's mind
they aren't wide enough, unfortunately
but i'm just gonna do kits for them i think, the loca method in installation made enough of a difference for me i think its warranted now. its a little costly. i'm mulling over some other changes to the design and testing some things out and don't want to do a GBA model that instantly needs to be updated to match the changes, so might just wait to do them when the general frontlight changes happen
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Hey all, any suggestions on a brand of LOCA that would give me the best results? There are so many on ebay, but I have no clue one which are the best ones.
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opt2not wrote:
Koji-Kendo wrote:I've got my eye on "Octopus Glue" and "X-factor" right now, but have yet to take the plunge as of yet.
I recently created an account here. I will be doing this mod shortly, but am also interested in what is the best option for LOCA is.
I might just take the plunge myself on the Octopus brand, but if you do it before me, please let us know how it turns out. Thanks!
Hi, just tried the octopus glue.
It's easier to use with less spillover but the micro bubbles are even harder to spot.
It looks just as clear as osaka but I got way too many micro bubbles so I wouldn't recommend this brand unless you have an autoclave or something to remove them.
Sucks and I would post pics but it's not even worth it really.
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opt2not wrote:
Hey all, any suggestions on a brand of LOCA that would give me the best results? There are so many on ebay, but I have no clue one which are the best ones.
I can tell you which ones to avoid.
There's this one with a lime green strip on the side label.
(Can't remember the name.)
That one looks like complete ass, all hazy, cloudy and shitty.
There's this other cheap crap that doesn't even have a brand name, comes in a red tube.
That one sucks balls too.
Man, there's so many crap ones that I lost track and it boggles the mind how most of this crap is even still on the market.
Basically, if you can't find any information or reviews on the loca or the seller, buy with caution!
Ebay is good to read buyer feedback on the seller.
It will show you what they said about a articular item, what the item was, etc.
Maybe that will help you.
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Has anyone found a good replacement brand? Looks like I waited a little too long to perform the mod 
I don't want to end up spending extra money on something that's just going to ruin a perfectly good GBC.
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I found a good price for OSAKA LOCA (15ish bucks): https://breakitfix.it/product-category/chemistry
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Koji, great mod instructions. I followed along and successful installed my frontlight bonded to the CGB screen. Physically, I've encountered a weird problem I cannot seem to solve though.
The ribbon to the bottom of the screen is bending too much when I try to reassemble my gameboy, and leads to the screen image messing up. I followed the tutorial by removing the foam behind the screen for extra room, but now the ribbon is just pressing directly against circuit board. Has anyone had this problem? How can I prevent the ribbon from bending this much?
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RetroChef wrote:
Koji, great mod instructions. I followed along and successful installed my frontlight bonded to the CGB screen. Physically, I've encountered a weird problem I cannot seem to solve though.
The ribbon to the bottom of the screen is bending too much when I try to reassemble my gameboy, and leads to the screen image messing up. I followed the tutorial by removing the foam behind the screen for extra room, but now the ribbon is just pressing directly against circuit board. Has anyone had this problem? How can I prevent the ribbon from bending this much?
Thank you. Here's one that's also very good: http://handheldlegend.com/pages/instructions
I have run into your problem early on. Perhaps this tutorial of mine can help elleviate your situation.: http://imgur.com/a/EyElT#9
Particularly the "cutting and trimming the inside of the front shell" portion.
If you need more info, I have a sub-reddit with lots more tuorials, guides and stuff.: https://www.reddit.com/r/Koji_Kendo
Also, the Game Boy sub-reddit community is really good and can help you if my solutions cannot.: https://www.reddit.com/r/gameboy
Hope that helps!
Last edited by Koji-Kendo (Jul 14, 2015 9:46 pm)
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Abandoned on Fire
vucifer wrote:
I found a good price for OSAKA LOCA (15ish bucks): https://breakitfix.it/product-category/chemistry
I'm guessing it's the "soft loca" that is needed for the frontlight?
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Melbourne
I did this mod (without the loca) but it's a little too bright (it looks cool leaking through the blue transparent case, but the screen is hard to read). What kind of resistor would I need to dim it to a manageable level? I'm not really into the idea of using a trimpot, especially since I have a few various packs of resistors lying around. I figured I could just try a random one but if anyone has a good recommendation, it might help prevent some trial and error!
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Koji-Kendo wrote:
Thank you. Here's one that's also very good: http://handheldlegend.com/pages/instructions
I have run into your problem early on. Perhaps this tutorial of mine can help elleviate your situation.: http://imgur.com/a/EyElT#9
Particularly the "cutting and trimming the inside of the front shell" portion.If you need more info, I have a sub-reddit with lots more tuorials, guides and stuff.: https://www.reddit.com/r/Koji_Kendo
Also, the Game Boy sub-reddit community is really good and can help you if my solutions cannot.: https://www.reddit.com/r/gameboy
Hope that helps!
I might love the people of the chip community even more than the music. Thanks for being so helpful - I looked up the newer trimming you linked to on imgur previously, but hadn't realized the older trimming had similar problems when you did it. I'll start there; the extra casing isn't doing anything positive so it can only stand to help. Also it looks like the only easy fix on hand... I'm novice enough that I'm still worried about breaking things too far to keep fixing. I'll be happy if at the end I accomplish all the basic mods I'd like and still have a working unit.
I'll be sure to update with the results in case others run into the same problem.
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Remodded the case based on Koji's suggestion, but may have found the bigger problem trying to fix the wrong thing. I got a chance to play around with where pressure on the ribbon caused my display to mess up, and think it may be due to some ribbon damage I hadn't noticed before likely caused by me not being careful enough when trying to fit the modded display into an improperly modded and therefore too small of a case. Below I have a picture of the screen display without any pressure to the ribbon:
Since this looks perfectly fine, I never assumed I had damaged components of the screen. The next is a picture of the screen with pressure on the ribbon attached to the bottom of the screen, caused by reassembling the case:
The double-image seen here is only present when putting pressure on the right side of the ribbon at the bottom of the screen, which led me to noticing damage to the ribbon itself:
I recognize I'm pretty far off-topic from the K-B front light mod being discussed here, but I figure it's a problem that some of you guys installing the mod may have run into. I guess I'm really not sure where to go from here, but I've got to assume that my screen problems are from the damage seen in the last photo, right?