Project Time

I the last post I showed you that I had started to work on a GBA case mod. In those pictures you could see that I had taken apart a clear GBA and removed the insides.

So yesterday when I went to work I made a stop at the hardware store that was close by and picked up some spray paint. I wanted a neon green but they only had a florescent yellow or a neonish orange, I went with the orange.

Today I took my cleaned clear GBA case grabbed the paint and went outside. I found a spot and started spraying away. It could have been better but meh it looks alright.

Super bright right? Don't worry its gonna look way different. 

I let it dry for 8 or so hours. In the mean time I took apart my good GBA the one with a GBA SP screen in it which I call the GBA+, if you don't know that means that it has a backlight and therefore I can play in the dark. I prefer the economics of the GBA to the GBA SP so don't tell me I should just use the SP. Anyway back to today, so I took apart my GBA+ and for the first time noticed that the signal wire was not soldered to the same place it usually is in all the videos and tutorials I have seen online. I had not done this mod myself because you need a special cable and it turns out there is one guy and one guy only, who makes them by hand. and he lives in China. I was going to need some other tools and a GBA and so forth as well so instead of buying just the cable from the guy I bought a premodded GBA from him. The price was pretty much the same only with no work and I would be sure that it would work.

I had always had an issue with the battery indicator light, its suppose to be green then change to red as the batteries get low. However this one would always change between green and red rapidly so I could never tell how the battery was doing which was kind of annoying. So I thought it was just an issue with using the SP screen but perhaps this could be the reason.

At this point the painted case was dry and I had to spend some time cleaning up the sides where there was some over spray. I still haven't gotten all of it by I'll continue working on it. In order for the GBA SP screen to fit in a GBA you need to trim some plastic on the inner housing, I could have done this before I painted but I didnt think I was really going to do this whole project today and was just interested in getting the thing painted at the time. So after trimming the pieces I needed I found that there was still some leveling of other plastic pieces that needed to be done.

After I got everything to fit pretty well I broke out the soldering iron and removed the old wire from the board which was going from Q1 to DA1 and installed the new one (I had to use a new one because of the length required to reach the cable). This time going from the ribbon cable P1 to DA1 on the board.

I tested it, the screen still lights up correctly and the battery light seems to be fixed as well. Though now its just a solid red which could mean that I need to charge the batteries or perhaps that is the only color to display, I don't know Ill have to try fresh batteries to really know for sure but ether way its better then the flickering.

So I put all back together and while it still needs some work cosmetically I think it looks pretty cool. I do need to paint the battery cover and order a new screen cover as this one is really beat up and the other GBAs I have all have the same issue as they were all bought as parts machines so it not really a big surprise. Speaking of parts I have the insides of the clear case I painted so maybe I can do something with that cartridge slot maybe bring back a project I never finished the DMG-SP, a GBA SP in a Original DMG Game Boy case (it has been done before but I had this idea years ago but my only attempt went no where when the SP board I was using uhh.... broke ..... it wasn't my fault.... so anyway...moving on). I also now have the clear case that used to hold my GBA+ so maybe Ill look for a neon green paint because while this one looks great I think green would be just that much cooler.

Finished Product.

With Dragon Ball Inside. 

The pictures make it look brighter then it does in real life though it is pretty bright.