Refurbished a Game Boy

I'm trying to do things that get me out of the house and reduce the amount of time I look at torture rectangles (aka screens with internet). This Refurbish a Game Boy workshop from Craftsman Ave. felt like a perfect opportunity. Not only would I get some quality time in a (quality!) makerspace and get my hands dirty doing some tinkering (with expert guidance and few opportunities to truly mess up), but I'd also get to bring home a joy rectangle to improve the joy-to-despair ratio of rectangles in my life.

Selfie at the workshop. I'm wearing an Eternal Caturday t-shirt and masked up in an N95. Behind me in a gray button-up is my buddy Hunter, seated and not looking at the camera because I did not tell him I was taking this photo!

There were a lot of things to like about the workshop. The Craftsman Ave space itself combines super functional with ✨aesthetic✨. Or, to paraphrase how they put it, "we foster the illusion that beautiful things are made in beautiful places, when we know better." Workshop instructor Zach was super prepared, knowledgeable, and patient. Helping out was Chris who was so nice and humble, but did so much so smoothly behind the scenes, it felt like we were all his guests.

Did I mention prepared? Here come a bunch of photos about how prepared!

Machined plywood stations with milled-out tray areas for tools and for individual parts of the disassembled Game Boy units.

Soldering stations for transferring the speakers from the old units to their new media controller boards.

A Fender amp was perhaps overkill for testing Game Boy headphone output, but then again we were Very Sure when things worked.

The workshop accommodates up to 6 units being refurbished, either on your own or with a partner. We drew lots to determine the picking order from the set of available Game Boy units. (I keep writing "Game Boys", disliking it as a term, and replacing it with "Game Boy units". What is language?)

Anyway, here were the pickings for the evening!

A wooden table with 7 Game Boy units in various states of wear, tear, and aging. In the background are 5 clean shells, for any participants who want to skip the scrubbing steps.

I chose this sad boy which had very little sign of aging plastic but a lot of signs that it had probably been through a flood, with grit on the surfaces and in the holes, major signs of water damage on the screen, and all that was obvious before looking inside.

Front of pre-restoration Game Boy. Signs of grit and water damage.

Rear of the unit. Original stickers are quite worn, and there are more signs of grit.

Looking inside gave me some bad feelings...

Rear of the unit with battery door cover removed. Green corrosion covers the battery terminals.

Exposed motherboard of the unit after removing the back. Blue corrosion covers the copper heat sink.

Zach had us examine the media daughter boards of our units, which indicate when it was manufactured.

The exposed media board. This one is from 1989, indicating it is a first-revision.

We used tri-wing and Phillips screwdrivers to separate all the electronic parts from all the plastic parts, then put our initials on the plastic bits in Sharpie before giving them a soap bath and scrub-down to remove grit and grime.

Disassembled unit, with various screws and internal parts in their trays.

Cleaned case parts after soaking in soapy water and scrubbing with a toothbrush. Also pictured: the new media board soldered to the original speaker.

With the electronics disassembled, we took turns using the Fender amp to test whether our Game Boy motherboard worked, using a 6-volt power supply and alligator clips to the power terminals. Mine, unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) did not produce the signature "bling!" sound indicating a successful boot. So, it was taken away (for recycling or a viking funeral, I don't know) and I received a known-good working one.

After motherboard testing, we took turns at the soldering stations, removing the little mono speakers from the original media boards and attaching them to the new boards. Comparing the new sleek black PCB to the old crusty speaker had me pretty convinced the speaker wouldn't work.

There were even more things happening in parallel. Our new media boards were part of a full screen replacement, upgrading these units to crisp, backlit IPS displays, with brightness controls and many more features. Critically, the new screens are bigger than the originals, requiring some alterations to the case.

This is where Craftsman Ave's X-Carve machine comes into play. A custom jig holds the front of the Game Boy case in place, while a router bit removes two screw support posts, some space on the side for the new LCD's control toggle, and carves back the edges of the screen.

A short loop of the X-Carve machine removing a plastic post from the Game Boy case.

At some point, Zach gave us a little demo of removing corrosion from the battery terminals using vinegar. The acid eats away at the corroded bits in a bubbly reaction. These parts were too far gone to use, but Zach had plenty of spares.

A bubbly solution of corrosion and vinegar with a bluish tint.

Some time later, the solution has taken on a darker blue color.

I didn't take many photos of the actual process. Re-assembly went pretty quickly, with a few key pointers from Zach about tricky placements and order-of-operations. I appreciate the care taken to make sure our new front "glass" and screens were installed free of dust and fingerprints!

Finally, it was time to put in the batteries and put in a test game. While Zach had a lovely collection, I had made sure to bring my own.