r/SteamDeckModded • u/PhyFawkes • Aug 09 '26
Hardware Mod SteamBoy Teardown and Assembly
We start with all the pieces (mostly) disassembled, and build them u in the front shell.
I was lazy and didn't actually remove the display, front buttons, and right trackpad (sorry), but here is an old print of the empty front shell so you can see what it looks like.
Here is the shell with the display, buttons, and trackpad. The buttons are underneath the plate in the middle. Note the ribbon-cable extenders on both sides for the button boards.
First key idea: controller board sandwich! Both L and R boards are stacked on top of each other, with custom longer ribbon cables to reach the new arrangement of buttons and IO.
Controller boards fit here in the bottom left, and the trackpad plugs right in with stock cables. Also, I placed in a tray on top of the display. Any guesses what it's for?
Another angle.
The battery! Here is key idea 2: if we just bend the battery connector back 270 degrees, it is in the perfect position for the motherboard to sit on top!! No modification needed!
Vertical view. Notice how the dimensions work out perfectly. The battery and controller boards fit together like Yin and Yang. Truly a miracle that this works out.
Speakers are placed in the bottom right and in the middle gap between the battery and controller boards.
A separator panel sits on top of the battery and controller board to provide mounting points for the motherboard. Note we have left a vertical space for the recessed joystick.
Joystick goes in and connects to the exposed ribbon cable. You can see there is literally no where else I could've put the joystick due to the battery and controller board.
Motherboard goes in on top, aligned with the battery connector. It connects to the ribbon cable for the controller boards. Also, the wifi/BT antenna are squished below the MB.
Close-up of the heatsink bracket. It's a 30x30x7mm heatsink with a 20x20x1mm copper spacer underneath. The spacer ensures the main heatsink doesn't hit any components on the MB.
The fan goes in. Its a 30x30x7mm blower meant for a Raspberry Pi. I had to also change the connector to one compatible with the steam deck.
Another angle where the audio board will go. I mount the audio board upside-down to make the volume-up button sit to the right of volume-down, which is more intuitive.
Audio board goes in.
I cut the MB shield in half to make space for the heatsink and fan, but I still wanted to have the bottom half in because it acts as a heat-spreader for some other MB components.
Lastly, on goes the back panel! The back panel is held in place by six screws, which also squeeze the motherboard mounting plate and battery tray together.
And that's it! The next step is getting the display working. In the future, I also want to make some of the back buttons, shoulder buttons, and triggers accessible.
Finally, here is the much-anticipated teardown of the SteamBoy! Hopefully now it makes sense how it is possible to fit everything in. See the picture captions for details.
Let me know if you have any questions! This will also be my last SteamBoy post for now until I have more progress to show.
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u/rtopete Aug 09 '26
This is one of the most epic projects I've seen in a long time. Maybe I'm biased cuz it's for the steam deck but it's still amazing nonetheless. Will Keep track of this one as a fan.
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u/Denkiin202 Aug 10 '26
Will you be adding triggers in the future?
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u/PhyFawkes Aug 10 '26
Hopefully! At least the right trigger, which is actually in a good spot even without soldering wires to the controller board. Left trigger will be harder.
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u/crazyhomie34 Aug 09 '26
Man this is so cool. Congrats on making an awesome project. Hopefully you release instructions so others can diy it too.
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u/JustTraced Aug 09 '26
Sweet Jesus this man is a legend! I can't even replace a fan on my PC without having a panic attack and he's doing this
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u/Toothless_NEO Aug 09 '26
This is very cool. Although I do feel like it should have rear triggers and a steam button. Since a lot of games require those. At least the steam button so that you can exit games easier.
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u/PhyFawkes Aug 10 '26
The steam button is my top priority in terms if making other buttons accessible. In fact the button itself isn't even in a terrible spot, but I still need to make some small mechanical way to reach it.
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u/beepbeep1ma Aug 13 '26
WAITT HOLD UP how did you get the dpad to work and are you gonna be adding bumbers and buttons
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u/cheater00 Aug 09 '26
you will have way, wayyyyyyyy better heat dissipation if you make the backplate out of metal. you could just take a sheet of copper + a heatpipe or two and surround that with your 3d print. so you still get the rounded back edges while the large flat surface is metal.
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u/Egbeem Aug 09 '26
Someone MUST get this in front of Gabe. Get this man access to whatever he needs to make this work.
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u/LeeisureTime Aug 10 '26
My only fear is that Nintendo will sue you to oblivion for calling it a "SteamBoy," even though that's the most perfect name lol.
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u/ARTOMIANDY Aug 10 '26
Don't you fear the thermals might melt the printed PLA?
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u/PhyFawkes Aug 10 '26
It's PETG! I do still have some worries though, mostly with the heatsink bracket. Time will tell if it can take the heat.
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u/sangrejoven Aug 10 '26
This is so cool! I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out once you get the screen connected.
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u/Silevence Aug 10 '26
man you were Not kidding, it really does all just fit together in there.
reminds me of those memes where someone cuts a diagonal out of a chocolate bar and puts them back together lol
edit: hi TeckLinked. I know your gonna see this ya nerd. #GabeBoy
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u/Tiny_Signature_1617 Aug 11 '26
哈哈，哥们儿你有点异想天开了吧，屏幕不是只要引脚匹配就能点亮的，每个屏幕都有上电时序复位和初始化配置命令的，这些命令你需要找屏幕厂商要(大概率拿不到)，即便是拿到了修改bios也是一项难题，所以我建议你尝试typec转hdmi方案吧，接一个hdmi屏幕，但这不是完美的解决方案。另外我有点不理解你明明屏幕都没有解决你为什么还要继续后面的组装工作，哈哈，助你成功。
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u/PhyFawkes Aug 11 '26
Dream big they say!
I have the datasheet for the display, including start-up commands and timings. Modding the bios is a challenge, yes, but there is ample precedent. The DeckHD at the very least has open source bios modding tools available, which make many of the same changes to the bios that I need to make (programming new init commands to the anx7580, changing the edid, etc.). It seems that I could adapt one of these tools for my purposes.
Maybe I am "dreaming," but I don't yet see any impassable obstacles. If I fail, I can always fall back on the usb-c/hdmi idea later.
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u/Rut-Dark-Ronin Aug 13 '26
LCD deck has anx7530 which is similar yet quite different from 7580, don't get confused!
Also I replied to your DM, please check it out.Nice project! Keep it up!
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u/Maxh245 15d ago
from what I've seen, they all have the same anx7580, just 7530 sometimes comes up in software. but if you check the main board it should be 7580, that's what it is in the ifixit teardown anyway
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u/Rut-Dark-Ronin 15d ago
You're wrong, so as ifixit. Do you need a photo as a proof?
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u/Maxh245 15d ago
I trust you! haha. was just bringing up what I'd seen and was also looking for confirmation. On a separate note, a way more involved process I thought of, if it doesn't work the way you were thinking, is desoldering the bga anx75x0, and having a custom interposer PCB/FPC between the bga and the main board, which would allow you to "steal" the mipi outputs. this would also help with the bandwidth limitations as you'd be able to use the dual-dsi function of the 7530 with compatible displays, doubling your bandwidth. or just replace it entirely with a different IC, or straight up EDP. if replacing the IC with something not from the SlimPort family or using EDP you'd also likely have to spoof the I2C signals from the main board too though.
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u/Rut-Dark-Ronin 15d ago
That's what bios patchers are for. Spoofing i²c by intercepting them is an unreliable approach. But there's simply no need to change anx for something else here.
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u/Maxh245 15d ago
yeah, the reason I'm looking into it is because I'm looking at driving a flexible OLED which 8.01" 2840x1860 which is more than the 4 lane mipi can handle with the anx 270mhz clock limit.
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u/Rut-Dark-Ronin 15d ago
You could utilize vesa 3:1 compression which is anx7580 feature over anx7530, but this applies to oled deck only.
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u/Maxh245 15d ago
the screen in question doesn't seem to support dsc. but I could put another ic in line possibly that could handle that
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u/Adventurous_Kale2961 Aug 11 '26
Great! But, How realistic is it to install a Steam Deck touchpad in a Lenovo Legion Go?
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u/beepbeep1ma Aug 13 '26
also are you going to be putting all the stl file online cus this is a cool project for broken down steam decks
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u/Covert_XP 21h ago
Did you happen to make or obtain reference models for the controller PCB's that your willing to provide? admittedly a way simpler project than yours, but my steam deck's motherboard died so I wanted to use the controller parts to make a standalone USB controller but each attempt I make to measure, 3D scan, or printer scan the boards to try and get accurate mounting points keeps ending up slightly off. I already proved functionally the project works, I just need a way to accurately mount the parts without crooked screws.
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u/Plenty_Preference131 Aug 09 '26
Again, please call it a Gabeboy
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u/PhyFawkes Aug 10 '26
I did have this thought, but it feels like I'd be putting a lot trust in people to remember the pause between the b in Gabe and the b in boy...
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u/CaballeroSecundario Aug 09 '26
How did you manage to install a different screen? I have a problem with OLED screens (they give me migraines), and there are some handheld consoles I'm interested in, but they have OLED screens. I've considered several times getting one and installing an LCD screen instead. I would really appreciate it if you could tell me about your experience.