GameBoy Pocket Backlight

Now that it's been about thirteen years since the GameBoy Pocket has been out, I've decided to install a backlight in the unit. Yes, there's a GameBoy Light, and there's always a GameBoy SP, but we all know the self-gratification we get from the DIY life-style.

In this, I will be explaining on how to dismantle, install, & benefit.

Step 1 Parts you'll need:

1 GameBoy Pocket
2 Thin gauge wire
1 Wire stripper
1 Soldering iron
1 Roll of solder
1 Really tiny LED (any color you want, but I prefer white) found in cell-phones or crappy MP3 players
1 Tri-wing screwdriver (found very cheap on e-bay)
1 Jeweler's phillips head screwdriver
1 X-acto knife
3 Alcohol wipes
1 Shot glass filled with Green Soap
1 Shot glass filled with a few Q-Tips
1 Thin reflective layer
1 Frosted layer
1 CD case
1 Roll of clear packaging tape


Total Cost: $15 (GameBoy & Twi-Wing)
Total Time: About 3 hours

Comments

[JJ7745]

what do you mean by frosted layer

[crazyg]

find broken lcd tv or similar dismantle find white reflective layer, wedge shaped layer of clear plastic with frosty dots, a rainbow double vision wierd layer.a layer that spreads light on one side and appears mirror like on the other. and lastly a frosty layer. have also tries different thicknesses of cassette cd vellman cases,and also a reargarde light bending easy park lense

[crazyg]

FIRST INSTRUCTABLE, well done mate,there has been a lot of avoidance of the critical stages of gameboy backlighting,its good to see that someones started,and on gameboy pocket !iv been working on the old bricks for a little while now and just attempting first pocket version, the screen layers are a bit more forgiving but the screen wireing is a right pain.

[crazyg]

iv made a backlight unit,and theres a guy on ebay bleeps8bit who sells ready made backlights his was much better than mine,even after my 6 attempts with different plastic and eventually cutting a laptop up,making backlights is educational fun but if you want it to look the part buy the part,thanks for the wireing info

[crazyg]

when removing foil layer scrape with a finger nail then remove sticky with genuine turps (art stuff,not as harsh as decorating stuff,its what iv got,and it works),the first one i did i used metal thing and scratched hell out of polarising layer which messed up picture so i ended up replacing layer

[stapleachip]

yeah, as kolibri said, what order did you but the layers in? i would tink it would be lcd, frosted, cd case, then reflective, but i dont know. also. how many layers do i remove from the lcd? i got the reflective layer off, but there is another layer under the reflective layer, almost like a tinted clear sticker, do i remove this too? thanks for the instructable! oh, and i also noticed that you can get rid of dead pixel rows just by wiggling the ribbon cable a bit! maybe you can get your pixel rows back!

[Kasm279]

No, leave that layer on. Its a polarizing filter.

[neonix]

I noticed the same thing about the ribbon. I thought I busted my screen somehow, but was happy to find out I hadn't.

Please do update on the order of the layers! A picture would be greatly appreciated too. And what might you suggest using for the reflective and frosted layers? I would think aluminum foil would make a good reflective layer, right? Could wax paper be good for the frosted?

[skittlespider]

What do you mean by "Separate all of the PCB's", there is only the one shown in the picture for this step.  What other PCB's do you have inside your gameboy?

[kolibri]

 Could you please add some more details in which order I have to put the layers. Maybe some drawing or other perspectives?! Thanks :)

[coolman35]

i beleive he ment the two layers behind the screen but im not sure. maybe you shold try getting some thick plastic sheets cut into the right sized slice and use some sandpaper to ruff one up to be "frosted"

[NoCashBob]

There are more holes in this tutorial than swiss cheese shot up with bird shot.
You need to add MUCH* more detail than this, it's unusable.

[jcubed69]

Wow I was just wondering the EXACT thing?

[-Link-]

Hi i was just wondering what you meant by "Thin Reflective Layer and Frosted Layer"?

[Hendrixman777]

Does this also work for a game boy color?

[Gibson1985]

Yes and no. The method that I'm using is for the Gameboy Pocket, or the DMG (brick) model. For the Gameboy Color, you would have to look for the front lighting kit for the Gameboy Advance, since the LCD screen has a very dark tint making back lighting extremely hard to do. I believe you have to look for something called the Afterburner. It works for the GBC too. I hope this helps!

[smsspdh]

Could I do this with an original Game Boy?

[Gibson1985]

It's much easier to do that to the DMG (original gameboy). There's some very good tutorials, and I recently saw a really good one, but you'll have to Google it. Happy modding!

[Liteachey]

how bout with a color? it'd be nice to have a backup for my SP

[contagion99]

one thing that could have been done better was giving us more pictures during the process of taking off the LCD. since it's such a difficult process then having pictures that showed us exactly what we were doing would have been nice. However I have to say that aside from all that, you did really well and I'm happy someone did this! thanks!

[DanAdamKOF]

Sweet stuff. I had a Gameboy Light a few years ago, it was definitely the best of the monochrome Gameboys. That screen was so, so sharp...