BitBlocker
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North Carolina, USA

I just spent hours yesterday and the day before meticulously taking apart my Game Boy Color and an Advance SP for its lighted screen to frontlight my Color. It took me forever to get the screen apart to get the piece I needed and low and behold I smudged the heck out of it whilst doing so. So, I had to take a microfiber cloth and wipe the thing down for over an hour to get them all out (what is this stuff made of?!). Then, I took apart my Color and placed the frontlight of the SP into the spot like its supposed to go, soldered two wires to its ribbon cable, and soldered one of those to the power switch (for ground) and another to a resistor connected to power. I FINALLY got everything back together and situated right and when I turned on my Color the backlight wouldn't turn on... So, while I was freaking out I took it back apart and looked for anywhere that it could have shorted itself on and covered those spots with electrical tape, then put it back together. And... the screen still didn't light up. At this point I was pretty pissed, so I popped a game in to see if it would play it and nothing. Nothing. It wouldn't go past the boot screen anymore. adhjkgakjhgjkhg

Here's the guide I was using: http://choochoobot.com/builds/gameboy-c … d-001.html

Unless you like high-risk stuff, don't do it. I just messed up my custom GBC case I got in the mail for it. >_> BUT! I did get a better speaker from the SP to put into my other Gameboy. All you have to do is cut out a tiny notch in the case to where it'll slide all the way down and sit right.

Apeshit
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And that's the easy way to do it! Most people modify the panel so it can be placed in with the proper orientation. You'll get different results if you put the panel in sideways because of how it's etched.

It's quite the finicky mod.  These days I etch a custom circuit board with the resistor on it so that there's less stress on the little ribbon cable. Definitely wasn't meant to have wires soldered to it.

BitBlocker
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North Carolina, USA

You make your own circuit board? yikes I wish I could do that kind of stuff. It'd make my life a lot easier when it comes to modding... I wonder, if you could make a guide using your method? I know it might be too advanced for some of us, but it'd be nice to see how exactly your method works. I'm really intrigued about it and I'd like to at least see a picture of it. smile

Kokoro
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Probably shouldn't be decrying a mod you've only tried once that others have had great success with, including myself. tongue

Just like backlighting, it takes a steady hand, soldering experience, patience, and practice. Screwing up your first one, even for a semi-experienced modder, is pretty common. Not to mention that a lack of a proper anti-static environment can screw up motherboards left and right.

Play around with the value of the resistor you're using, give it another shot; I'm sure it'll work out eventually!

12ianma
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Proper anti static for motherboards, seriously lol. mine sit on whatever I stack them, they are tanks. never fried one. Computer ram, processors, that kind of stuff actually matters. the gameboys have enough grounds etc. Has anyone actually fried a board with static here?

BitBlocker
Offline
North Carolina, USA

Yeah, I should probably change the title of the thread.. I was just feeling a little angsty about messing up my mod. I could give it another go since I have another Game Boy Color that works, but I don't know how to tell if the light still works or not. That's the main issue.

Apeshit
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BitBlocker wrote:

You make your own circuit board? yikes I wish I could do that kind of stuff. It'd make my life a lot easier when it comes to modding... I wonder, if you could make a guide using your method? I know it might be too advanced for some of us, but it'd be nice to see how exactly your method works. I'm really intrigued about it and I'd like to at least see a picture of it. smile

I may eventually, but I'll give a little run down of my process.

I wear gloves when removing the panel to avoid fingerprints. They're difficult to remove, and cleaning solutions usually make the problem worse. Then with a cutting disk and a dremel, I'll completely cut a chunk off of the panel. This usually leaves plastic bits on the panel which can be removed with compressed air.

Then I will glue the custom PCB to the plastic of the shell. My initial plan was to glue the PCB to the back of the LCD and have the ribbon cable fold back and solder to it, but there's no room to do this because the LCD sits flush on the main PCB, so I just glue it to the plastic.

Kokoro
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12ianma wrote:

Proper anti static for motherboards, seriously lol. mine sit on whatever I stack them, they are tanks. never fried one. Computer ram, processors, that kind of stuff actually matters. the gameboys have enough grounds etc. Has anyone actually fried a board with static here?

Well, having been doing extensive console mods for years, I can say it's absolutely possible if you're in the right environment. Used to be really active on the Benheck portablizing forums and static victims were always a common problem, especially with certain boards like the N64.

12ianma
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Guess I've been over lucky. I ran an n64 board on my carpet all winter lol. Made a portable and wanted to make sure I could play with the heatsink being as small as I modded it to be, it surprisingly did not get too hot after about 2-3 hours.

BitBlocker
Offline
North Carolina, USA

Okay, so it turns out that the board isn't fried. Instead, it was just the screen that was shorting it out.. which is weird because I didn't even have the thing soldered on my second run to see if the board still worked, not to mention I had the exposed wire wrapped in electrical tape. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ When I took it completely out, it booted up and played a game just fine. The case is still toast, though, because the person helping me with it broke off one of the posts that holds the A & B buttons in place. It causes the buttons not to want to register if you don't press hard enough (not as sensitive as they used to be) which is a pain because I don't want to have to press down hard every time. I don't have the post anymore either... I don't know what happened to it.

I'll just take the guts and put them into a different case because I really like that new SP speaker. There's so much more clarity with that thing. Of course I could just unsolder it and solder to a different board, but I'd rather not mess with the soldering again right now.

Last edited by BitBlocker (May 17, 2012 4:23 am)

Shadow-Bit
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i tired to front light my brothers cgb and fried it and i bought him a new one put the gut of it into the other one because his was a limited edition  pokemon gameboy. but i'll soon try again.

kitsch
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matt's mind

a good trick for removing dirt/debris/dust/some fingerprints from the panels is scotch tape.  it doesn't leave residue and picks up a lot of stuff really great.

in case that helps anyone...

Vile
Offline
San Diego

What I can't figure out is how I fried the frontlight I was trying to install a week or so ago. From all of the tutorials I've read the frontlight only needs a 3V supply, but when I put a 3V to it (more like 2.8V since I tested the circuit) the built in resistor fried, and boy did it. hmm  Damn thing got glowing red and then fell completely off. Surprisingly it would still light after the resistor fell off, but that didn't last for long obviously.

By the way, kitsch is right, scotch tape works wonders getting fingerprints off of screens.