I just successfully and happily backlight modded my gameboy, took about 3 hours time. Made a few mistakes, learned from them. I had a hard time trying to find a tutorial, so i had to go by their gallery pictures to figure out how to do this. So here i present a how to just in case anyone here ever plans to do the same. Enjoy Courtesy of Nonfinite Electronics - Home What you need ------------------------- - 1.5mm Dual LED backlight mod kit from Nonfinite $15. You can choose any color, but i chose yellow as its the easiest on your eyes IMO. 1.5mm Dual LED Backlighting Kits [PROBACKLIGHTKIT1.5MM] - $15.00 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce - Black mini Rocker switch (Optional) $2 Black Mini Rocker Switch [ROCKER01] - $2.00 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce - Tri-Wing screwdriver $2 Tri wing screwdriver [TRIWING] - $2.00 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce - Classic Gameboy DMG model - Glue gun - Dremel - Philips Head - Desoldering Braid - Soldering iron + preferred solder type ------------------------------------------ Visual Parts List Gameboy, nonfinite business cards, optional gameboy jap cart/gb socket cleaner - DMG replacement screen (optional), led plexi module, polarized film, 100ohm 1/4 watt resistor, switch, single short wire, 3 wire long length, piece of heat shrink. ----------------------------------------------------- Preparing the LED backlight module ----------------------------------------------------- 1. Commence to take apart the gameboy with the triwing screwdriver, theres a total of 6 screws on the back. Carefully pry the casing open and separate to get a good look at your work space 2. Now you want to prepare the led plexi module. Get your soldering iron out and let it heat up. In the meantime, lets get bending. Lay your module out so it looks like this, taking note of the long ends, versus the short ends. 3. Now bend the long ends like so. 4. Now you wanna bend them like this, low profile, and solder. 5. Get your heat shrink piece and cover like this so it wont touch any exposing led leads. Solder. ------------------------------------------------------- Preparing the Gameboy LED glass ------------------------------------------------------- 6. CAREFULLY, CAREFULLY! use a flat head or xacto to pry up the lcd glass from the white plastic frame. While its pryed up, put something underneath it so you can go ahead and snip out the plastic white frame at these two spots. Snap off the clear led too. You have to remove this in order to have room for the Module to fit flat and proper. Once youve snipped out the plastic frame piece, CAREFULLY use a fresh razor blade to peel off the lcd glass' reflective film. Its imperative that you take your time on peeling off the reflective film by hand. You wanna keep any ribbon cable movements and creasing to a minimum, just take it real slow peeling a little at a time. Just use the razor to get a corner up, then use your fingers to do the rest. Picture of the plastic piece snipped out. This is for a proper slide in of the led module. ----------------------------------------------------- Preparing the Gameboy Mainboard ----------------------------------------------------- 7. Flip the lcd glass mainboard over and snip out or use desoldering braid like i did to remove the diode and resistor in the top corner. While youre there, go ahead and solder the single small wire to the solder pad closest to the dial. Before After ---------------------------------------------------- Tricky slide in-and final led module placement. ----------------------------------------------------- 7. Heres where it gets tricky. Wash your hands with soap and water to remove any grease or oils. You dont wanna get fingerprints on either side of the lcd glass, or the polarized film, or the white part of the led module. If you dont keep it sanitary it will be visible when you get it put back together and turned on. If your polarized film, lcd glass, or led module has fingerprints, clean it with a lint free microfiber cloth. Now its time to slide in your led module, once its slid in all the way, slide in your polarized film on top of it.. So the led module is on the bottom, next polarized film, then on top is the led glass. Align it as best as you can taking note of the edges making sure theres no see through, no white showing, or areas where polarized film isnt covering. 8. Once you have it perfectly aligned, use a glue gun to keep it in place. 9. Now its time to solder that single wire (from the backside) to the same lead the heatshrinked lead is. You'll have to snip off some of that lead to fit in the casing. Now solder the resistor that came in the kit as displayed in the image. Use a two wire lead to solder to the other two pads. This will goto your switch. 10. Dremel out your switch hole, bend the switch terminals flat, solder, and dremel off the leading corner of the pcb so it'll fit right when your put it back together. (dremel the corner thats opposite of the newly soldered resistor.) Corner dremeled out Separate pieces of electrical tape covering edges of switch and board 11. Lightly put everything back together and give it a test run. 12. Put it back together if it works!!
thanks, if i had known i was going to make a how-to i wouldve taken more pics.. but it was kinda last minute.
wow, 5th result on google search "gameboy backlight mod" 1st result on search "gameboy dmg backlight mod" very cool
Ha, just realized you are now first in Google searching for gameboy backlight mod. GG Torx! ~Will Courtier~
...and humble is he. The master of the Gameboy rises up but yet shys away from his illumination that is his glory. You da man.
