Me, in mid-January:
"Hm, I think I should finally complete modding my Game Boy Color. Modern screen replacements are available aplenty now, unlike a couple years ago..."
Me, today:
"... I'm out. I should just toss it all on eBay, let someone else deal with this shit."
To elaborate...
~ Several years ago ~
- Planned to mod my GBC with whatever (I think) BennVenn's first GBC screen kit was
- Ordered two translucent shells of different colors, planning to mix their front and back halves
- Installed a blue power LED, because the "back half shell" and buttons are blue
- Wanted to get it from UK store, as they were geographically the closest and least likely to cause me customs grief, but they never actually got it in stock
- Oh, the different shells didn't fit together well, either
- Put the GBC and parts into a drawer
~ Fast-forward to January 2023 ~
...
- Ordered a "Q5 OSD IPS V2" kit, or whatever it's called, the names are all meaningless, dumb and confusing
- Quick test outside a shell and without a cartridge makes it appear to work fine and look great, too
- Ordered a black shell made for IPS screens, i.e. no cutting the plastic required, and a set of purple-blue buttons
- Standoffs for button contact pads in the shell are flimsy and break almost immediately
- Shell does fit the new screen, but it's basically impossible to also fit the PCB that the kit I got requires
- I guess this one's meant for kits that have all the smarts on the ribbon cable, not a separate board?
- Ordered a different shell, this time just translucent white, which requires minor cutting to support modern screens
- Shell arrived, I installed everything into it, then noticed the graphical glitches in Pokemon Silver and other games
- Tried to look things up, this issue, general advice, pitfalls, etc.
- Came to the conclusion that, probably, everything is drawing too much power and the stock power regulation isn't good enough
- Removed the blue LED, scrambled to find the original one, put that back in, no change
- Ordered 1) replacement capacitor of different-than-original spec for cleaner sound output, and 2) replacement voltage regulator board, made specifically for GBCs, for better main 5V supply
- Installed capacitor, removed much of the audible background noise and actually improved the graphical glitches somewhat!
- The Game Freak logo also momentarily glitched out before, which it stopped doing at this point
- Was hopeful the new voltage regulation would fix things, considering a kinda unrelated capacitor already helped!
- Installed voltage regulator board, after struggling a lot with the old one
- No change whatsoever
- Be very pissed, decide to likely throw everything onto eBay to recoup my costs (and ugh, I spent way too much on this...), write these chosts(...?)
