Armstrs GBZ Complete

[Armstrs]

The final piece I needed was Helders AIO board. It arrived and project #1 is done. Woohoo!

First... thanks to Wermy for the incredible instructions and custom parts. Thanks to Helder for the super-sweet all in one board. And thanks to AJRedfern for the awesome custom Gameboy Zero splash screen.

Here is what I did. It’s a ‘normal’ build with Helders AIO but without the SD card reader or power boost. My cost was $118 (including extra parts) due to parts I already had.

First things first… the elephant in the room...yes, I used a fully functioning original Gameboy for mine. “What?! How dare you!” Look, it has been in a box for 20+ years. I popped in Metroid II and tried playing for a week before deciding to gut the Gameboy. And it turns out there is a reason it’s been in a box for 20 years: it really sucks. It is impossible to play without perfect lighting and I would rather play an emulated back-lit LCD version. There was no GB nostalgia factor for me either and I would rather repurpose it then sell it. Vote me off the island if you must.

Power - I used a 1500mah Wii U battery and the charger from a portable cell phone charger I already had. I wanted to keep the battery compartment intact as much as possible and the battery fit almost perfectly. The charging board is mounted under the Gameboy metal plate so l can see the charge indicator lights through the cartridge slot. Battery life, unknown. But it lasts longer than my thumbs do playing on this thing. I have played for an hour and a half straight and had 2 of 4 charge lights still lit.

Screen cover – The plastic screen cover that comes on the back-up monitor was perfect. I simply peeled off the Gameboy plastic and used it as a template to cut the monitor plastic. All it needed was a little sharpie action on the round corner to finish the black border.

Issues... turns out my soldering is way better than my hot glue skills. Good grief, what a mess.
And the speaker is not very loud but the headphones are too loud. No idea what that's about yet.

I really want to get Kites AIO and do another one, but I need to finish my Wii U project first.

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[fcib]

Funny how you mention the original GB thing.

I used one (vertical lines, maybe i could fix but fuck it) for a case, switch, buttons, headphone jack and speaker.
the original dpads are rounder/smoother on the edges, possibly due to wear. they are much nicer than reprods so I use that. Also the originals have a shorter travel so the buttons feel much nicer and have a more distinct tactile feel.
I sacrificed another for more parts and also used the (working) screen to fix my favourite clear gameboy. Now it has a working, backlit, biverted screen and prosound mod

So from:
2x broken gameboy (1xclear, 1xyellow)
1x working gameboy (1x black)

I got:
1x working gameboy (1xclear)
2x gutted gameboy (1xblack, 1xyellow)
2x gbz salvage parts

Sue me. Also your build looks good. I like the in-tact battery bay. Looks clean.

[AJRedfern]

Nice project!

Thanks for the mention on the Splash Screen.

I wanted to use an original case I had for my first build, but I worked out that it would cost almost as much to de-yellow it than to get a reproduction.