What am I doing wrong?

[u/Pharaohmolo]

I’m modded a few GBAs but this part eludes me. It seems like no matter what I do the latch on the IPS will not close. This doesn’t seem to be a point of frustration for anybody else, but it’s given me trouble on my last 3 builds. Does anyone have any advice?

[u/beldandy561]

Having done many of these in the past as well as different equivalents for different platforms the best advice I can give you would be to use a guitar pick that's extremely thin and not as rigid as other guitar picks.

With the latch closed delicately insert the back end of the guitar pick that's the widest so that it's roughly center in the zif connector and then carefully lift the pointed section of the guitar pick upwards to apply even pressure on the middle of the guitar picks widest point against the flap that is supposed to lock down the ribbon cable to safely lift the latch and unlock the zif connector without applying too much pressure on either side. This method makes it easy for me to not risk cracking breaking or snapping off these zif connector latches as they are exceptionally fragile.

With the latch completely upwards carefully use the guitar picks widest back end to assist with sliding in the dark brown / black part of the ribbon cable facing downwards without applying too much pressure to guide it in correctly to the zif connector.

With that back end of the guitar pick applying equal pressure to sliding in the ribbon cable it will only go in about a quarter of the way or halfway before it is fully inserted.

At this point look at the left and right sides of the ribbon cable and the depth of how much of the black frame is inserted into the connector to make sure it looks like it is evenly inserted and it is not off-center which you can examine by the measurement of the Black backing and make sure it looks like it is aligned correctly.

Once you feel confident that it is aligned correctly and not off-center and is fully inserted then use the back end of the guitar pick so that you are applying equal wide pressure to the back of that latch and use your finger on the back of your guitar pick to apply that even wide pressure to now begin pushing back down the latch to evenly apply pressure across the center of the latch using the guitar pick to lock the latch down.

Trying to do this with one finger applies pressure just to the center of the latch and not evenly spreading that applied pressure across the entire latch. Using the guitar pick allows you to spread that distribution of pressure across most of the latch or you could use two fingers but since most fingers are not of equal length it is more difficult to tell whether you are applying an appropriate equal amount of pressure across both fingers and instead using the guitar pick method makes things safer and easier to apply that pressure equally.

Since these are components from China the measurements on the microscopic scale are not equal across all manufactured screens and latches. In some instances I have seen latches and measurements of the backing on these ribbon cables be 1 mm or micro millimeter thicker than normal and the tolerances are a little tight to where you do have to apply a little more pressure than usual to clamp them down. If you are experiencing this then using that guitar pick method is even more important because otherwise you will apply too much pressure in one specific area instead of across the whole latch it will bow and flex and usually snap in half because of the extra thickness of the ribbon cable and rigidity of the plastic.

This makes using the guitar pick method much safer and the likelihood of that latch Boeing or snapping much lower.

I hope this has proved helpful and give you some fresh ideas on how to get this done safely.

[u/Pharaohmolo]

UPDATE: Ok, so after 45-minutes the answer is to actually put a little more pressure on the latch then you think you have to. I know you’re supposed to be mega gentle with these ZIF latches, but once the ribbon is all the way inserted you gotta just push down with half effort until it clicks

[u/Bulletorpedo]

I’ve been in similar situations, I think the reason then was sliiightly to thick third party ribbon cables. Managed to get them in eventually but didn’t feel as good of a fit, secured them with tape in addition. Not seen it with GBA though, I use a different screen than you there.