Introduction: How to Add a Frontlight to Your Gameboy Color

By Zachariah Cruse

If you grew up with playing Gameboy like I did, I'm sure you remember countless hours of pokemon battles, many of which were only possible by the saving grace of your wormlight. I know I owe many long nights of Gameboy to that wormlight.

Now that I'm older though, a wormlight doesn't really cut it. This tutorial will show you how to very simply add an internal frontlight to your Gameboy Color. A feature that blows your wormlight out of the water.

Step 1: What You'll Need.

1. Your favorite Gameboy Color
2. A Broken Gameboy Advance Sp. (Make sure the model is NOT an AGS-101, this version uses the wrong light)
3. Tri-Wing screwdriver
4. Soldering iron and basic soldering skills.
5. Some wire and solder.

Step 2: Disassemble and Remove Screen

First you'll need to remove all the batteries from your Gameboy, followed by the 6 Tri-wing screws that hold everything together. Once you have the screws out, the back half of the Gameboy should come right off, leaving the Gameboy motherboard still attached to the front casing. To remove the Gameboy motherboard from the casing you will need to do 2 things, First remove the phillips screws that hold the motherboard to the casing. Second, unplug the screen ribbon cable. The pictures should help you understand.

Once the screen is unplugged, you can remove the motherboard, leaving you with the screen inside the front casing. The screen has some adhesive around the edges, so it might take a little pulling to get it out, but it shouldn't be to difficult.


Step 3: Remove Frontlight From Your GBA SP

To remove the light from the Gameboy Advance SP, you don't have to take apart the whole thing, just the screws around the screen. Once you remove those screws, you should be able to pull the plastic casing apart, leaving the screen attached by only a ribbon cable. Go ahead and cut this cable with some scissors to free the screen.

Once you've got your screen loose, the first thing you need to do is remove the screen bezel. (The clear plastic that says "Gameboy Advance SP" on it)The screen bezel is attached with a rubber like adhesive all the way around the edge. VERY carefully pull the screen bezel off from the edges. Try not to touch the screen underneath this, it's actually the light panel that rests ON TOP of the actual screen, and it's very hard to remove finger prints if you touch it too much.

Once the rubber adhesive stuff is removed, you should be able to pull the light panel and light up out of the screen assembly. You'll need to cut the plastic around the screen that the ribbon cable was fed through. On the backside of the screen assembly you will need to peel up the ribbon cable that attaches to the light. There is a small rectangle on the end of the ribbon cable for the frontlight, this rectangular section has two solder pads on it. BE SURE to peel up this rectangular piece AND the piece under it. If you only peel the top layer you will render the solder pads useless, and ruin your light.

The left solder pad is positive and the right pad is negative.

Step 4: Installing Your Frontlight.

Before you can install the light into your gameboy casing, you will need to modify it a bit. It's not too hard though, all you need to do is rip off the plastic "wall" below the screen. I just grabbed it with pliers and folded it over and ripped it out. It shouldn't take more than a few mins. Once that plastic is removed, you can simply lay the frontlight into the casing and then place the Gameboy screen on top of it. Be careful of finger prints! You don't want everything smudged up!

Once you've got the light installed and the screen laying on top of it, Go ahead and lay your Gameboy motherboard back in. The orange rectangle with your " + " and " - " solder pads on it should stick up around the side. (see pictures)

Go ahead and wire leads to each of these pads. The left (positive, blue wire) pad needs to be wired to the third pin down on the power switch.

The right (negative, yellow wire) pad needs to be soldered to ground. I soldered it to the negative side of one of the caps behind the battery connectors.

Once you have everything soldered up, go and and screw the motherboard back into the casing with your philips screws, plug your screen ribbon cable back in, and finish it off by screwing your back casing back on. The Tri-wing screws might be a little harder to screw down now that you have everything installed, but don't worry, it should go back together just fine.

Step 5: Finished!

That wasn't too hard! You've now given new life to your Gameboy color, and made good use of a broken Gameboy advance SP. I personally prefer the way a Gameboy color plays over an SP, so I use my frontlit gameboy's instead of my working SP.

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