Game Boy backlight mod

In my last post I refurbished a Game Boy DMG and a Pocket, but I still had the backlight kit from Gameboymods.co.uk. The backlight mod can be tricky because you have to remove the reflective film and polarizer from the LCD screen, which are firmly attached with adhesive. I read about people cracking the screen, scratching it, making it cancerous or just cutting the ribbon cable in the process. I decided I wasn’t going to risk damaging my newly refurbished Game Boys, so I had to find another way. Well, I could just get some more DMGs and have a few spares. Right. I picked up a few more, in various conditions, from Marktplaats. Some things the sellers threw in: three battery packs, a dc adapter, a magnifying glass and a 4-player adapter.
Now I had 5 extra Game Boys, some were looking pretty good and I didn’t want to ruin them so I cleaned them up and put them aside.

Enough with the refurbishing, I need to get modding! I took the screen with the most blank lines and used a sharpie knife to peel away the corner of the reflective layer/polarizer. The first try I got just the reflective layer so I inserted the knife again. I managed to pull away a corner with a bit of effort. I was being extra careful, not to break the screen or put to much pressure on it, but man, this is a frustrating task. Half of the layer came of sort of clean but the other half left a lot of adhesive stuck to the glass.

I tried cleaning with alcohol using cotton swabs but it didn’t work as I was hoping. In the end a microfibre cloth with alcohol worked best for me.

Next the LED panel needed to be inserted and soldered, this went pretty smooth and I turned on the system to see if it would light up.

Bingo! Insert the polarizing film to check if there’s anything on screen.

Remove the protective films from the LED panel and polarizing film and it’s time to put everything back together. Be careful that the newly added wires don’t get squashed between the pcb and the screwholes, tuck them away under the LCD ribbon.
I didn’t do the bivert mod, but the screen is so much better than without a backlight. The photos don’t do it any justice, it looks much better in real life than on camera.

To me it’s already a difference of day and night. Even though removing the reflective layer is a pain in the ass (it took me about an hour to get it cleaned up), it is worth it. I can’t imagine playing on a non backlit Game Boy anymore.

I’m curious what the bivert mod will look like in real life. Hand-held legend has some good looking bivert chips that seem pretty easy to install, maybe I’ll get some and mod one of the other Game Boys I have.