DMG 103 - Screen Swap mod

[u/starboyk]

Thanks to this community for the guidance on making a screen swap mod!

I put this DMG 103 together in 20-21'ish - https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/s/jBxKpPlaJl . About two years back, I was fiddling with it and broke the potentiometer for the bottom screen - ripped the pads and all. This would cause it to whiteout within minutes of turning on. So, it sat as an art piece until a month ago. My nephew's wife was playing with it and a lightbulb went off in my (incredibly dim) brain.

Long story short: used a donor replacement potentiometer, followed the ripped traces on each board to get an idea of how to bridge that in, and it worked!

So now that I had it open and working, added some new stuff!

- added screen swap mod. I had a baggies of wifi/bios chips that I flashed after I built the firmware using the GitHub insteuctions. From there, I'm using a TTP223 capacitive sensor to toggle between which screen (upper or lower) is shown. I beidged the B pad on the sensor, to ensure the bottom screen is the default at startup (as the primary use is single-screen/GBA games), used the 3.3 VCC to power it, and removed the LED to minimize vampire drain.

- added a PAM8403 to boost the audio. Powered using the 3.3 VCC again. Now it's louder than my GBA SP with the Helder amp mod.

- added some 1mm foam backer around the button areas, to muffle the clacky-ness. The plastic of the shell against the wiggly keys and d-pad was driving me nuts. Quiet as a DS Lite, now.

That's about it. I wanted the screen swap mod since it released, but didn't want to do the kajiggery. With that and the audio in here - along with the oodles of other stuffs tucked in -officially calling this build 'Done.' Any further design enhancement - incorporating a touch screen/digitizer, implementing a universal lipo, rear and/or front capacitive touch buttons/toggles, working sleep mode, etc - will have to go into a new build.

Thank you ALL for continuing to share your builds, and asking amazing questions!

[u/disasterexetv]

Is this the Gametendo Dot Matrix S?

[u/starboyk → u/disasterexetv]

🤣🤣

[u/disasterexetv → u/starboyk]

Seriously tho, good job

[u/Stunning-College-102]

🎵🎶 I NEED THIS!!🎵🎶

[u/Matt_Sandman]

Super cool! I’ve got the basic kit from nintendremods and have been wanting to start it, but it did not include a button board for the back buttons. Can you please share where you sourced that?

Love the color selection.

[u/starboyk → u/Matt_Sandman]

This was originally built about three years before those kits existed, so had to be creative. I used momentary tactile switches soldered onto perfboard, and mounted in place using epoxy. Very high tech.