Handheld Hijinx Vol 3 - There's a U in Colour!

Inviere

Having finished the DMG-01 ips conversion lately, and seeing @CosmicSmash mentioning the Funny Playing IPS conversions for the Gameboy Color, I ordered a shell and kit from the official store on Ali Express.

First I needed a candidate donor, so I grabbed one on eBay that looked pretty rough, with case damage. At least this way I'm not taking a nice example GBC out of the wild, plus the mod is non destructive and completely reversible if needed.

The below works perfectly, but has been horribly filed on the lower right corner for some reason.

The kit itself, shell, buttons, button silicone pads, screen, stickers, and required wire etc.

Disassembled donor, motherboard is a bit on the dirty side. I gave it a quick clean down with IPA, and it looked a lot happier.

I used some no clean flux, and tinned the power switch connector and required points on the mainboard. A small needle tip soldering iron attachment is handy here.

The kit comes with a backing sticker for the screen (protects against shorts), so that's fit here, and then the whole screen assembly fits right into place - zero alignment required whatsoever, sweet!

From here we fit the control board to the screen's ribbon cable, tin the required points on the ribbon (use flux here, I also cleaned with IPA even though its no clean flux, just incase there's any reaction to the ribbon materials over time), and then use the included wire to attach the start/select points on the mainboard to the ribbon connectors. It's also worth securing the two wires with some kapton tape just to ensure they don't interfere with reassembly.

Nearing the end now, all we need is to connect the capacitance sensor, which allows us some nice touch-functions of the screen (brightness, grid effect, etc). You just touch the top of the shell where the sensor is located, and it works perfectly.

Complete the look by adding the included stickers...

Then, the moment of truth...

It looks epic in person, really vivid, clear, and sharp. You can adjust brightness, set a grid effect, and change the colour of the gameboy logo too...I just set it as white, given its the overall theme.

The Last Bandit

They really are a great kit, simple installation, brilliant picture and the additional stickers are a nice touch. Only issue I have with mine is the power slider much stiffer than the original case.

remoteboy

That looks amazing. Might pick it up. Is it this kit?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003205834440.html

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118806620#Comment_118806620

Yep, that's them. Mine was the all white kit, but as you can see, there's tons of choice for whatever way you want to have yours. My kit didn't come with silicone pads though, and that means no start/select buttons....just keep that in mind. I ordered those separately here - https://a.aliexpress.com/_mtf3TdW

CosmicSmash

They really do make a big difference, it would be hard going back to a standard GBC now.

Colonel Panic

Great thread! I've grabbed a pair of these kits to do one for me and a mate. I've got an IPS GBA and a Bivert DMG, but playing GBC games on the GBA isn't very authentic with the cart sticking out the top and the full screen not being used!

KeRbDoG

What is the battery lift like after the screen mod?

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828747#Comment_118828747

Honestly not sure, it'll likely spend the majority of its life on shelf display duty! I've an Analogue Pocket on order that'll cater to the majority of my handheld needs (which are already very low as I'm not big on handheld gaming.) I'd say the battery life after the IPS mod is at least several hours from what I can see online. I see RetroSix also sell a CleanJuice rechargeable battery pack for the GBC too, for anyone who'd want to spend proper time with it.

Colonel Panic

I got my kit today and got to work on the atomic purple shell. Installation was fine, but several of the screw bosses disintegrated on me. Not sure if the plastic is really brittle or I have super human strength, but I'll see what the seller says about a replacement.

Shame because the screen looks AMAZING.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118947016#Comment_118947016

The screws when going on first time, are literally cutting their own thread into the plastic. Best practice is to turn clockwise and the anticlockwise to clear the cut plastic from the screws path. That's said, the screw posts shouldn't just come off like that either...

Colonel Panic

Yeah, I can see that from the broken bits. Hopefully they’ll send a new shell and the adhesive on the screen isn’t too strong.

Edit:

I popped the screen to try and mitigate the adhesive bonding with the shell then reconnected it with bubble wrap as an insulator to stop it shorting so I could be sure I hadn’t broken it!

The other pics are from during installation