Spyder's Gameboy Pocket build (Gaboze Pocaio Round 2)

[superbuzz]

Hey Spyder - came here from the PocketFE thread lol just wanted to see if I could help since I've built a few of these across the various iterations, but seems like you're in good hands.
Just a few extra points which hopefully help you:

=> The screen is easily desoldered, but it is a little nerve wracking to do. Basically, start at one end, pull/lift gently while heating the pads, as it comes up keep advancing the iron until the whole thing comes off. If you feel you're heating it too much, lay off and let it cool for a bit before continuing. Worst case you wreck the screen (but if you need to desolder you were probably thinking of turfing the entire board anyway), best case you saved yourself about $10 bucks by salvaging the screen.
Also, only a few of the 51 pins are actually used (I think). This is just an observation based on which pads actually have traces coming off them. You could make your life easier by just soldering those ones when you're trying to get it set up for testing and only solder the rest once its fully working.

=> I've never been able to get the Pi off the header once soldered, I don't think it's possible without a hot air station. What I've taken to doing is having a Pi with header sockets installed, so that I can just push fit into the board to ensure the board is working before soldering a pi onto it.

=> With the power side of things, I found its a bit hit and miss with TP4056 boards - some seem to work fine when you test it out of circuit, but then they choke under load (random shutdowns etc) once you solder them down and you can tear your hair out trying to diagnose whats going on.
My process is assemble everything except for the 4056 and pi - use the socketed Pi and power directly from Pi's power in port. If that works then next step is to pick a 4056, use wires to connect it up to the board and test powering it from the Pocaio's USB power port. If the 4056 works, then solder it down. If it doesn't work, keep trying 4056s until one works. The 4056 is difficult/impossible to desolder so this avoids needing to turf an otherwise fully assembled board.
(Also, from 32teeth's wiki - if it looks like Pi is booting up but you only get white screen, try re flowing the 4056 board, apparently some ground issue)
The Pocaio PCB is pretty simple, and I found that with power issues it is more likely that the 4056 module is defective rather than any mistakes in assembly of the Pocaio.

Hope this helps - feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

[Spyder]

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely try the 4056 wire test as I do have like 4 more of them. I have everything to start over, but am just lacking time. Maybe after Christmas. It definitely feels like I should've just bought a retroflag case, but I want to know that I built this dang thing from scratch.