How to Install a Game Boy Pocket Backlight! 

I'm told that newer versions of the Hand Held Legend backlight kit have been revised so that the resistor is built into the backlight itself. If you pick up one of these kits, it won't include a separate resistor, so the step in the video that shows installing one can be skipped.

You're like the Bill Nye of console mods. Love it.

Just completed this mod with the help of your fantastic video. Keep up the great work! To those of you who want to try this mod, BE WARNED: the step Colin mentions where he places electrical tape on the opposite side of the backlight mod contacts is more important than is conveyed here. Depending on how the GBP is reassembled, the contacts mentioned may touch the cartridge slot contacts on the bottom of the PCB. If this is happening, the system will act as though your cartridge/cartridge slot is dirty and display a glitched Nintendo logo and not load any games. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out why my Pocket wouldn't load properly and only worked normally again after covering them like Colin demonstrated. Don't be like me. Cover those contacts before you bundle up your Game Boy Pocket!

Just did this mod, and the polarizer film, when you hold it up to an LED screen should be oriented the clear way. I.E. turn it until you can see through, and that is the right side up. The way he describes that part is a little confusing. But sweet video! My mod went successfully!

5:10 this is incorrect. Soldering to this point will make the backlight flicker with the sound. The correct pin to solder the positive lead to is right next to where the ground was soldered, at pin *6*. Pause at 4:45 for reference. Use the resistor when using this pin though, as it's 5v and will kill the backlight without it. Edited to change the pin number from 5 to 6. Pin 6 gives constant 5v; the pin used in the video will give anywhere from 2.5-2.7v.

Just followed this video and successfully modded my first Gameboy. Far from easy and i have no soldering experience at all. Thanks for the help and great video.

Your tutorial was so helpful! I tackled this myself with barely any experience with soldering. I got it done and I'm so happy with mine! Thank you again!

10/10 recommend, just followed step-by-step and worked perfectly! Clear narration and directions. *big ups this does not compute*

Just finished this mod as well! Need to clean up the glass a bit more but other than that it came out perfect! Thank you!

i love ya man! finished mine yesterday and it looks awesome! went with a blue screen, pastel purple buttons and i custom painted a shell that goes from pink to blue :D

awesome video brother. I was able to complete my very first mod successfully and am extremely happy with the results

Another great video! Im trying this mod out as well and your video is much more clear than anyone else's :)

Thanks for posting this I followed along with this and got my gameboy pocket working with a backlight!

Colin, great vid! I usually slap things back in and do a test run before screwing everything in place. Just eliminates the hassle of tearing it all down again after you found you put the damn polarizer film in wrong way.

Thanks Colin! Did mine today. Took a bit of trial and error, but it's working great now!

thank you! just ordered one!

Just finished doing this mod, a couple tips; use a piece of scotch tape around the bottom of the ribbon cable to hold it together, if you've got a lot of adhesive residue on the screen try using a magic eraser cut into small pieces.

Great tutorial! Worked like a charm on the first try. Finally I can play Tetris in the dark :D

I would like to add the backlight on my gameboy pocket but I hesitate for a reason: the battery autonomy. This device uses 2 AAA... So, the game boy pocket has only an autonomy of 10 hours approximately. What is the autonomy with the backlight mod?

Hi. Congratulations for your tutorials. They seem fantastic and very simple to understand. I have put some of them into practice with very good results. I had difficulty in this when separating the metal part of the LCD glass. Is there any trick, advice or simple way to do it without breaking it? I have already broken two screens 😰 and they are not easy to get. thank you very much!

Just followed your instructions and successfully backlit my first Game Boy. Thanks!

Managed to do it first try, thank you so much!

Great tutorial! Being that it's summer and I'm in AZ, I found that leaving the original screen in my car for a couple of hours makes removing the reflector/polarizer a snap! This tip will only work for people in the same geographic situation as me, however. ;-)

You make this look very easy. keep up the good work.

So informative and helpful!!! Thanks, will refer to this later.

all backlight from handled legend have luminate dot visible :-( is there no way to create it with a super long led ? this is not visible on front light kit

Ey guys I need some help here. I bought a V3 backlight with a built in resistor. Issue is should I even use an additional resistor? And if not, which point shall I solder the positive wire to?

I'm doin this tomorrow and can't wait

Thank you so much for this guide! It makes playing games on the gameboy so much more enjoyable and it wasn't that hard to do. However, I had some difficulties on the way, I'd like to share: 1.) When I first turned on the Gameboy after installing the backlight, the screen displayed everything just fine, but it didn't light up at all. I thought the rechargeables to be known good, so I checked on the solder joints and the connection to the screen and stuff dis- and reassembling the gameboy several times. At some point then I connected the gameboy to the wall adapter et voila: the screen lit up (still showing vertical bright lines). Using fresh batteries, it also lit up, though not as bright. freshly charged rechargeables worked as well. So NOTE that wiring it up as shown in the video will make the backlight go dimmer as the batteries/rechargebles go low on power. there's n updated/better way to wire it up, more on that in 5.). Test the backlight ONLY using wall adapter or fresh cells! 2.) Using an updated version of the kit, I had difficulties figuring out the correct orientation of the polarizer, as it looked the darkest/brightest holding it diagonally in front of a screen, and holding in a way it can fit into the screen assembly it just looked medium bright any way I rotated it. but that's not a big issue, though. first attempt, I had the screen inverted, but opening the assembly and turning the filter 90° solved that. no big deal, just something to note. 3.) after all the dis- and reassembling of the gameboy, I got some vertical lines of "white" running across the screen. The ribbon cable is very fragile, so avoid unnecessarily touching the screen assembly, even for troubleshooting purposes. I managed to fix that the next day by resettling the screen ribbon and taping it to the back of the screen assembly until everything made proper contact and the lines were gone. So, if you have vertical lines of what looks like "dead pixels" on your screen, don't worry, It can easily be fixed. 4.) Opening the screen assembly repeatedly to troubleshoot also made some dust go in between the screen layers, which does show in the screen. It's not terribly bad, However I would like to remove the dust particles but do not dare to open the screen assembly again and risk getting vertical lines again. So, again: DO NOT disassemble the screen any more than you absolutely have to! Oh, and keep a can of compressed air ready to remove any dust particles from the screen layers, just in case. 5.) wiring it upthe backlight as shown in the video makes the backlight flicker, which is barely notable in some games (like F1 Race), but can make it extremely uncomfortable to look at in other games (e.g. Hugo). Plus, I had the backlight start to go dim after just 40 minutes using fully charged-up rechargeables. The updated way to connect the backlight module, as shown on the product page, is to solder the POSITIVE lead to pin 6 (above pin 4 which the negative was soldered to in the video) and the NEGATIVE lead to pin3 (below pin 1 which the positive was soldered to in the video). Note that if you still have the old version of the backlight module, according to commenter "Moon", you MUST use the resistor, as it provides constant 5V, as opposed to varying 2.5-2.7V from pin 1. This removed the flickering and the rechargeables lasted me easily three times as long, but when they do get weaker, now the contrast gets increasingly lighter until you can't see the pixels at all (but that's just before the gameboy turns off), while the backlight brightness stays constantly bright. So, you win some & lose some using this wiring, but overall it's much better, imo. product page: handheldlegend.com/products/game-boy-backlight-dmg-and-pocket?variant=16870377731 check the last image for reference! In conclusion, it's a fairly simple mod and completely worth it!. Despite the difficulties described above, it only took me 3 hours total and with the lessons learned I could do it in less than 45 mins, if I was to do it again.

I need to install my kit into my game boy pocket. This is very useful and concise. Thank you for the video. I will need to play with the contrast screen. The theory of it seems strange.

Hi there, I installed the kit as directed by the video (except with perhaps slightly inferior soldering because of my lack of skill) and the Gameboy Pocket was working pretty much perfectly for awhile. A bit later, I noticed that the backlight started flickering, which was annoying but not that big of an issue. Later, I had an entire horizontal line of dead pixels, this was approximately a month after I installed the mod. It's my hope that shoddy soldering might be causing this issues so that it can be fixed, but I'm afraid that it might be just that the age is showing since I figure if I damaged the ribbon cable, it would have been immediately noticeable. Has anyone else had issues like mine? Any related input is appreciated.

Does the contrast wheel make any difference once you install this mod, or does this disable it? Awesome video as usual! Really digging the crazy high production quality.

Great video!!! I have seen videos that show vertical dead pixel repairs on the gameboy original; are the same repairs possible on the Game Boy pocket? Hopefully I can repair the pixels and backlight my old Game Boy pocket. Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks.

Definitely going to do this soon. I thought it was much harder to do it than this!

Thanks for another entertaining and informative video! I do have a question: My DS Lite has a problem in the shoulder buttons that causes them to steadily become more unresponsive, until they barely work at all. It seems to be a pretty common issue, and the current popular workaround is to blow air into the shoulder button--which only works for a few minutes, anyway. I was wondering if you ever found something that could be a little more permanent of a solution?

looks like this backlight mod also works with the good old' DMG, which is great news for us audio snobs 😀... Of course if I was a real audio snob, I'd have already Pro-Sound modded my DMG...maybe you could do a video on that?

I tried doing this about a year back and I kept getting a black dot near the center of the screen and bubbles appeared on the screen from the polarization filter. I was pretty irritated. It might have to do with it being the first model backlights which were really thick, I'll need to get the newer thinner models and see if that'll fix it.

Hi, Wanted to know if the contrast regulator works after installing the backlight

Awesome video, best teaching ever, thank you very much!

YOUR THE MAN COLIN! (Collyn?) Love your work. Please do a GBA front light install video, PLEASE! Keep up the awesome work!

hey great video, since the GBA backlight kits are so hard to find these days. Do you think this could be done on a GBA?

Great Video as usual :) Is there a difference between the "Handheld Legend" and the "Kitsch-bent" Frontlight kits for the GBC and which is better?

I followed your tutorial and it worked like a charm. Only thing now is that the screen is inverted. can you tell me how to fix that. I did not use a bivert module.

Great video! I have a kit left over from a few DMG mods and looking to mod a Gameboy pocket. Question. Would it be if compatible or even necessary to add the Bivert chip to a Gameboy pocket? Thanks!

Hey Colin, is there any other way to get the adhesive off the back of the screen? I tried alcohol and it isn't removing any of it, and the whole thing is pretty much covered. If you could help that would be great! Great video though! Everything went smoothly up until this point. A friend of mine had this problem too and it took him a few hours to get it all off and he said I have more on than he did. Also for anyone that had the issue with the blinking screen you do not need another resistor, you need to solder to two points on the other side of the board. You should do a video on this Colin, it is really good if you have the blinking screen issue!

Im not clear on something.... which direction should the polarizer be? put it vertical as dark? or vertical as light? Also, I would like to bivert my pocket as well. Would this be a worthwhile mod for the pocket? I know you had done an install vid for the original GB, any chance you could do one for the pocket?? Your videos are awesome and help a lot! Thanks!

Great tutorial! Thank you!

I wrecked two screens trying this mod. I got horizontal and vertical lines when I took off the reflective strip. Any other tips or tricks to get this to come off easier and not have these lines?

OMG I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!! Thank the gods for this video! Thank you for your hard work. I just calmed down. :D

Hey so i'm confused on the polarized part, like the turning it 90 degrees thing. when you turn it to see it turn white is that the way you put it in?

i see many screen color options, which one has the best contrast? also will those 4 bottom lights in the pics show up in real life?

Hello one question!! In aliexpres said me that this screen dont need resistor... Is this correct?? I have put other screen whit 2 separared cable red and blue.

Since Gameboy pocket uses AAA batteries, it would be great to have the ability to turn the light on or off. I would put a micro push button right the bottom of the power switch. This way, you could slide to turn the gameboy on or off and press the power switch (with the GB turned on) to turn on the light. Using a microcontroller you can even add brightness levels.

So if the green part of the ribbon cable and the orange part disconnect is the screen broken? I just did that to mine

So I just did this. The ribbon cable thing is no joke. I slice the long grey cable straight in half from one side down. I attempted to repair it using a soldering iron, heating it up, and just barely running along the edges that were cut apart. Worked. My screen has a bunch of horizontal black lines near the bottom portion of the screen, but I've learned for next time I do this mod. Someone below this comment said to wire the positive end of the backlight power to number 6, right next to 4, instead of where he does on the video. Do this.

Anyway to repair the ribbon cable? I sliced a portion of it and now that part of the screen doesn’t show anything.

what resistor shoul i use to decrease the flickering? Thanks!

my screen is fine, it's very dim now, but the pixels are inverted and the backlight isn't coming on. i didn't install the bivert module and the pixels werent inverted the first time i turned the gameboy on after doing the mod.

Hi! Would you recommend using a hair dryer or heat gun for peeling off layers glued to screen? Will it damage ribbon cables? Thanks!

This was clearly too hard for me, or I was really unlucky. My first two attemts doing this mod, I ended up with vertical lines on the screen. Most likely i put too much pressure on the ribbon cable while removing the polarizing film. I also heard this can't be fixed like it can on the original DMG. I got it on my third try though. At least they were all cheap pretty beat up gameboy pockets from japan...

I've got a question for you, Colin. I put in the backlight in the gameboy pocket, and your video was extremely easy to follow and understand. I have a newer version of it, but it's still essentially the same thing. When I tested it out, the backlight came on no problem, but there were two errors. One, there was a bubble in the screen (which I can live with). Secondly and more importantly, the lettering on the screen is distorted. It won't play games, just shows the distorted Nintendo logo. Any thoughts to what the problem is?

just ordered the parts for my GBC. I got the front light wit loca 7 and I had no ideal that my GBP had a backlight mod I'm so happy that these mods are cheap cuz im going to mod my GBP and I'm thinking about biverting it as well I ordered it but I don't really have a good soldering gun I just got an old cheap on that I can't control the heat with I think I mite wait till I can get a better iron before tackling that mod idk yet I really don't wanna mess it up it's the first GBP I got I won it from the under the cap game from surge a long time ago

I'm getting IPS LCD screens for my Gameboy Color consoles. Can I use the old Color LCD's in my Gameboy Pocket?

If you use regular batteries instead of of the rechargable ones , will the screen still be too dim?

Can't get mine to power back on . Any ideas to what I might have done wrong? I bought high end batteries. Not sure what I did.

i installed everything just like in the video (i got the blue one) and the screen is extremely dim is it supposed to be like that?

So I installed the kit, and it works fantastically. My only concern is that it (the screen) flickers as I play on through a game. Is there anyway you might know how to resolve this issue? Great video, thank you!

This is a great video. I have just ordered my kit. I have been reading up about backlighting Gameboys over the past couple of days. DMG users seem to recommend biverting - is this necessary on the pocket?

I've been fighting this damn glue residue on the back of my screen for like half an hour. Isopropyl alcohol doesn't work nearly as well as Colin claims. I'm trying to soak it in windex, that seems to work a little better. Will update in a moment.

i just do that and get screen flickering, how other points i can use?

Dose this make games look exactly like playing them on a GBA SP ags 101 with the color set to black and white (left + B)

Hey Colin, thanks for the amazing tutorial :D I just did this mod, and it helped a lot.

THat rotation thing about polarizer is so confusing!!! Can someone clarify which way it is to be rotated?

Is there a way to have the blacks stay black and not be gray without using a bivert module i want bark blacks not grays without the contrast maxed out on my mgb and to be able to keep my system on for hours without my tablet charger plugged into the dc connector so i can do walkthroughs on youtube with my phone camera.

The film will not sticks to the glass of the screen causing weird illuminate points?

Hey! is it OK to ask questions here? I just have two! :) My first question is, could you please do a video just on where you can buy buttons and dpad replacements for GB Color and how to install them? I know that sounds simple, but it would be complicated for me. :) The other question would be I was given a GBA SP *after* the backlight was taken out of it to be placed into another GBA SP shell, but otherwise it works and runs fine. I don't really think getting a backlight kit would work for me, but my question is; is it possible to add or use the front light kit or method to get the screen illuminated again? Thank you for your time.

Killed some pixels on mine, right in the middle of the screen >.< the polarizing layer didn't come off with the reflective one, so I had to use more force to pry that off by itself, and just killed some... sad day.. I do have access to a spare though, so not all is lost

How thorough do you need to be about getting the residual adhesive off? I have been working at this a while with 91% isopropyl and not getting very far.

I'm still kinda confused. I mean I remove the silver thing but why not the next polarizer film? I mean the kit that I bought has also a polarizer film? Why using 2 of them then?

Nice one! So do you recommend the resistor or not? I want to do this mod with the original gameboy but am not sure about the resistor. Whats the difference, Mr. Colin?

Hi, Nice job on this tutorial. The Game Boy Pocket was my first experience with video games. I still remember the day my Mom & Dad brought me to the store to buy it & two games for it back in 1996. ^_^ Thanks for the link too. (I didn't know HHL had their own store) I have to try this at some point on one of my spare Pocket's. I have one question though. Are those K-on! figures in the background or am I mistaken? Thanks! ^_^

That amber backlight looks beautiful god damn

i tried wiring the positive without resistor and still wont power on... backlight only powers on if negative is on number 5 but Gameboy wont bootup

I got this kinda right the 1st time, the screen lit & but there was no sound and you couldn't adjust the contrast, so i stumbled upon a comment that said to just take it apart and start over, so i did but now the Game Boy wont even turn on

success! took longer than expected since most of the reflector adhesive stuck to the glass, and IPA, Meths, Ethanol, Gasoline etc didn't touch it. An aerospace degreaser finally did the trick! Buy hey, it works. Bivert chip to follow. Cheers :)

I think u should note which backlight to use, I used the thicker older model and broke 2 screens

Is there a way to add a Bluetooth so I can game retro with my wireless earbuds?

Hi it seems to be that the original link is broken. Could you please update it? Or suggest a new backlight kit?

Definitely worth it if you don't nail the ribbon cable. This is literally a console destroying project if messed up as replacement LCDs don't exist yet. Just nicked my ribbon trying to do this as the adhesive would not lift on any corner for me and I had a bad fight with it. Be careful and be delicate on this step, it's as fragile as it sounds.

The polarized section. If I’m facing the gameboy from the front (like playing), should it be dark in front of an LCD or light? Wasn’t clear on that

Is it normal for the screen to have some residue texture after removing the reflective polarizer? I tried cleaning it with the alcohol and q-tip but still couldn't get it looking 100% clean. Thanks.

Thanks!

Hello i have make dmg mod good. But have problem whit gb pocket. When put ligth screen dont ligth higth. Where solde?

Is there any other way to get the adhesive off the back of the screen? Cotton swabs and alcohol don't really work. Like I don't know how you got all the adhesive to come off when pulling off the sticker because all of mine is still on and it won't come off

I wanted to know one thing about this backlight mod, is the screen as clear in bright sunlight after the mod or is it barely visible. Just curious

Hey I have a question : Can u make a video where u get a transparent purple gameboy advance and put Led's inside of it and see if it wastes a lot of battery on the advance PLEASEEEE I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS I NEED HELP WITH THIS THANK YOU

Hey I did the mod and everything and I think I screwed up. When I peeled off the the reflective and polarizer layers I took the blue part off as well Im not sure if you were supposed to do that. Anyways I decided to just go with it and the mod seems to be working but Im still having one big problem and thats that my screen is a little crooked and if I move to fast my screen gets a little blurry. can anyone help me with the crooked part I tried straightening the polarizer but that doesn't seem to work.

In the V.3 backlight kit, the resistor is integrated :) !

I broke 2 GameBoy pockets doing this.. That ribbon cable underneath the screen ripped both times. I'm hoping to buy another Pocket sometime soon to try again, except I'll tape the ribbon cable down so it doesn't split.

I've ruined two game boys trying to do this. I must screw up the bottom connectors of the ribbon cable when I peel the adhesive backing off of the screen, and when I put it all together there's always a big white line in the middle of the screen. so I open it up again and try to tinker with it, was told to put a piece of electrical tape to hold the ribbon bottom back together, but I just end up ruining it. so bummed yet again.