From what I've seen around the internet, usually the replacement cases from China don't come with rubbers. So using the original rubbers in this is probably a way to maximize profit.
I have gotten 2 of these cases, one from ebay and one from Amazon. Both for Raspberry Pi powered systems. Both cases came with all rubber components. This is the blue one I got from Amazon, comes with rubber pads. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C51R25B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
@@truealchiemist Here you go: www.amazon.com/Replacement-Housing-Nintendo-Gameboy-Advance/dp/B07FQQL4VK/ Shell, buttons, screws, screen lens, back sticker and no membranes. $5 cheaper.
I was actually quite intrigued about this, because around here getting a used GBA will go for more than the listed Aliexpress one, but after seeing those scratched up contacts.. yeah probably better to save up a bit and invest more in individual replacement parts.
@@Deathtosquishy in my experience the tracking normally doesn’t work, so if the 3 months buyer protection wears out before receiving it, they normally provide a refund
@@Deathtosquishy actually the extreme shipping times are often an issue with the service in your country. The packages arrive at your countries airport but since the postal service earns nothing when delivering these they just leave them there for a month before it gets processed. There are some more high priority packages that basically arrive in your country the same day but get delivered from there within a week while normal China post stuff just gets ignored for sometimes multiple month.
3:37 I'm not sure if it's universal, but in the scale modelling world those parts are called flash, where plastic has spilled over the edge of the mould, and also seam/split lines which are basically the same thing but smaller and along the entire/most of the length rather than being little isolated parts. Extreme flash can sometimes leave you with little thin sheets of plastic sticking off the edges
When you find magnetic bits on the speaker, normally it can be traced back to the audio capacitors, chances are they are starting to wear out, which then causes oxidation on the magnetic part. You can try cleaning the speaker with isopropyl alcohol, or swap the speaker, but without replacing the Caps even a new replacement speaker may start to oxidize.
Man, I've bought mine for ten bucks and got three games on top on it back then... To be fair, the screen was scratched to hell and the buttons hardly worked anymore, but a new lense and some chrome polish to remove the oxidation (those pads were beyond isopropanols capabilities) did the trick. Thing looked great when I was done. Speaking of lenses, are glass lenses worth it? The one I used is plastic and there's a dull spot that has always bothered me.
You take a little of a gamble, normally they are ok, they have some use marks as they are mostly refurbished, I've bought one and still works fine after a year.
Can confirm that they are terrible, the Chinese shells for DS lites are absolutely garbage, and many times you get mix mashed top and bottom screens meaning you get 2 colour tones, top could be more blued and the bottom could be yellow. I bought one and I regret it
"you can find them for maybe 20 pounds" *shows eBay listing for Japan*. Yeah, if you don't count shipping or import taxes :D Mate, I'm sure you've found some pretty cheap doing some effort scouting eBay for a while, but finding ones at 40 is a pretty good "Buy Now" price in 2020 if you take into account really cheap shipping (as AliExpress has).
i bought a used GBC on ebay £25 plus about £5 shipping. was in good working order. only problem was that developed, was the common sound issue with GBC's the caps.
@@stevensimpson3252 That's a nice find, too bad about the sound. I had 2 GBA's in my watchlist that went for about 25-30 (I picked up one of them), in between a sea of 40+ ones. They're there but they're certainly not the most prevalent and there's usually a compromise (eg. something stupid you'll have to fix or replace, like a battery cover or speaker). The other GB's (various models) I managed to pick up this month, were between 35 and 45 (not counting shipping) and I got lucky they were all in excellent shape.
@@rembrandx was the same lovely canary yellow colour, just like my original, which had battery leak corrosion, and which i couldnt find. so bought another on ebay. worked when it arrived, but gave it a bit of a clean inside and out with IPA and soap n water for the respective parts...just as Elliot does in many of his videos. Even the screen was in good condition, no scratches, obviously, aside from usual wear and signs of age.
You had the Worm Light then. White LEDs were just hitting the market, and this was an early example of a white LED. It plugged into the link port, drawing power from the system. The GBA output lower voltage through the link port, and it was less effective on the GBA than the GBC.
we all had to get really good at holding our game boys at *just* the right angle where the screens caught the light from the lamp/sun/whatever without getting too bad of a screen glare
If they take the time to use new parts and clean most of the old ones, I'd say these Game boy's will sell pretty well. Personally, I prefer one where you can actually play in the Dark
Woah i've never been this early before. Thanks for the content! I have loved learning all about gameboys and fixing them as I only really knew computer hardware.
Off topic - great to see most (I missed some of it) of your competition judging with Joey Does Tech. Must've been a tough decision. Congrats to the winners. Merry Christmas Elliot, Emily and Diesel!
I have a GBA SP with backlit screen and a fake Pikachu shell from Aliexpress. The shell is a bit low quality but looks good enough and sometimes the speaker doesn't work unless I LIGHTLY bang the console against something soft, which is amusing. 50$ is 50$, I'm pleased enough with the purchase. Funnily enough I bought it because for the life of me I cannot find my original GBA SP... Also depending on the seller, the customer service can be pretty good. I contacted mine because of the sound issue and he gave me an option to give me back 20$ so I can repair it myself if I want to or send the unit back for him to fix. I chose the former.
I'm kinda surprised the shell looked decently authentic (Judging from the "Start" & "Select" fonts and the Nintendo logo on top) instead of being something from a defective mold with different fonts.
I guess now I know who to blame for buying out those gameboy lots from Yahoo Japan Auctions. Shame really these undergo shoddy refurbishing so you have to refurbish them once again. BTW if someone was interested in those you can upgrade to Aliexpress Standard Shipping for about 4 EUR so you probably won't end up waiting for it so long as Elliot did.
If alcohol doesn't do the job, use a pensil eraser, if that doesn't work, use vinegar to remove some oxidation, then resolder/tin the pads. Never ever scratch the thing!!!
And here, right next to Germany (in Czech Republic) we don't even have a gameboys to buy and if, it's like 100 euros so this is why I am here thinking about buying one from aliexpress (because it's even cheaper than buying from UK for 30 pounds + 20 pounds shipping + tax)
They used a little sandpaper to reveal more steel as the contacts are covered in a microfilm when 'refurbished'.... and rather than dissolve it, they opted for sandpaper. Monsterous but not unheard of.
People love to complain and whine about, but the truth is, this is mostly fine for a GBA. Shame about the board not being quite clean enough, but other than that, it's completely fine.
Yeah, the average consumer on seeing a cheap "refurb" is going to expect a screen without scratches, buttons that work, and a clean outer shell. Seems like this delivered on that. Nobody is expecting museum quality for $50.
You can't find game boys at that price here (10-20 pounds) here they are sell at the aliexpress price or higher, so it's a good option. I've bought things there before and my purchases has been protected, and get half or full refund if there's a problem with the product.
Thanks Retro for exposing Aliexpress. I'm so sick and tired of shoddy companies cutting corners and ripping people out of their hard earned money. They should be forced to refund everyone who has purchased a 'Refurbished' gameboy due to misrepresentation. It would be good if you could do this for a few more companies so your viewers can get a balanced view.
Such a shame to think how many pcb's they've damaged by scratching up the button contacts like this. So unnecessary! those contacts will oxidize way faster now most the copper has been removed :(
I liked your take on something different the other day. Maybe do a Super Gameboy thing with fighters with multiple controllers and Wario Blast with four players with the multi tap. Some good titles are Animaniacs for music, Donkey Kong for Color, Space Invaders for Arcade and Namco Gallery series or even a crap one like Disney's Hercules would be neat. Great work. Thanks.
the chinese replacement shells for everything before the GBA SP seem to be really high quality (I've bought one for a GBC with a destroyed case so I could give it to a friend but... not broken, and one for a GBA, which I'm probably gonna get another one for and replace, maybe pick up one of the backlight mods that are easy to install). the moulding of those cases looks great in general.
i find it's better to potentially just buy a game boy with no housing (there are some on ali and ebay sold, actually) and the chinese housing, and try to get away with using the original buttons and screws.
Might be worthy to note that the eBay prices of gameboys on UK or US ebay or in Japan not necessarily reflect the pricing that people in less prosperous countries would get, with lesser local retrotech markets, and high shipping prices if ordering from US, UK or Japan, which is rather unfortunate. This is where aliexpress sellers probably target for, instead of EU, UK, Japan, or US.
I have been buying lots of handhelds from aliexpress lately. The family pocket 3000 is a great addition to my collection and would highly recomend it. This looks great
I bought my DsLite on Aliexpress. The diagonals of the D-pad don't work properly, the L and R buttons are hard to register but otherwise it's fine. I never checked the inside of it but it might be dirty. It really depends on the Aliexpress seller! (I wish i knew how to fix the diagonals, it's really annoying)
54 Dollars is actually a pretty good price in switzerland. Most people here think their old dirty GBAs are worth gold or something. So if you intent to mod it anyways one form aliexpress would actually be less expensive.
Motherboards from AliExpress have been pretty bad in my experience. For example, I bought a Game Boy Pocket motherboard and it had the same issues (scratched contacts and covered in filth).
I would be curious to see what they did to the other Gameboy types such as a DMG. Are you going to make a video on your second channel of cleaning these poor Gameboys?
I would love to see more of these kinds of videos, just to see the atrocious mess they make of the consoles, however I wouldn't want you wasting a bunch of money on them, although I would like to see if you can a) build a gameboy (any make or model, whatever is easiest) from parts bought on Aliexpress/eBay/Wish/what have you preferably all loose parts where possible, and, b) make a really nice modded gameboy (again, any make or model.) Using the cheapest stuff you can find on the same websites.
hack on some mechanical keyboard switches to a gameboy. i recommend kailh choc switches since they are low profile. I like the sound of kailh choc jades.
hey man, not sure if this is the best place to ask, but whats your method for getting stripped and/or stubborn screws out of a GBA SP? love your work and youve inspired me to try modding, but im stuck on these damn screws!
Aliexpress used to be good up until 2 or 3 years ago - gone downhill rapidly since then with fake tracking numbers, literally 3 + months to receive goods (if at all) , really poor shipping/product protection , not sending the product for up to 10 days after order/payment , can not open a dispute for a refund until the 90 day buyer protection has ended. I could go on and on - I no longer use Aliexpress as the negatives out way the positives.
Great work Elliot. That's a very useful thing you did in this video. I wanna ask you something. I bought a cracked Super Nintendo for 9 pounds/45 lei (I'm from Romania and here we use "Lei") from a local website and I don't found anywhere a new shell for this console. Where can I find such a thing? Thank you.
Hey buddy can we get an aftermarket batteries videos for the SP? There's a lot of stuff out there and as you've plenty experience I would trust your word on the subject. Cheers!!
Hi Elliot do you know about the pokemon mini? I think you would love how game boy like it is and its also cartridge based. Have a gander at it when you can :3. I would love to see a video about it in any of your channels. Cheers
Hey there Retro future! I brought a Gameboy Advance SP off of eBay for AU$140 with a case to put games and the SP in, and a charger. However there is some sort of orange stuff on the screen I have never seen before. Is the screen wearing out?
I ordered a refurbished DMG for $30 around 5 years ago. After two months I asked for, then received a refund. Six months after that, 8 months total! I received it! Twasnt very bad but the case was horrible. No clue why I ended up getting it anyway.
im tempted to get a couple premodded ones off ali with the fairly high end display mods. I'd rather support bennvenn, frankly, but money has been ridiculously tight for me for longer than this year, and my mod skills are so out of practice. when i can afford cool stuff again, i think i'll go for some of his stuff (and retromodding and all)
I had a refurbished GBA as a Christmas present and it still feels and plays pretty well, from my experience. Though the back covers (yes, even the official ones) are terribly flimsy!
I can forgive not cleaning the board, and I can even forgive the old membranes. But holy cow, scratching the shit out of the button contact pads is just madness. Big yikes.
I just upgraded from a backlit purple GBA to a DMG-01 style shell V2 ips kit for the GBA. Very easy to do. I think they should have used fine steel wool on that electrolysis. Oops
hey elliot, i found a really interesting cassette player called the cassette boy color. it's not too expensive and since you like gameboys and cassette players, it's right up your alley. im kinda interested in buying one haha. they're about $100 USD plus shipping on ebay for a few listings and the original DMG color is $269 USD. would be super cool if you could get one a post a video.
Hello mr R Future Im thinking of modding a gba do you now a site where i can buy cheap gba? Im also thinking of buying a gba sp with a un hinged aluminium case but i think that case isnt shock Proof. I have still a original gb and a gba but these are from my childhood. Tips are welcome
I'm fine with this TBH as long as you know what you are getting. This is not so much refurbished as recycled e-waste. So the original plastic shell would of been long gorn but the pcs would of been sitting in a huge bin with other random pcs and someone has gorn though and pick a bunch out, tested them to see if they still work. like 1000 grit sand the contacts because yes and also quick and assembled it into whatever parts they could find. as i said im find with recycled e-waste over just destroying everything.
Omg, I would be very angry if I paid that price, open it up and the contacts are scratched like that. If it works, most people won't open it up and never know about it until something doesn't work. So yeah, just buy a used one and refurbish it yourself is the best advice.
No. Now they cost $58.99 and it's normal to increase a price step by step for these things. I bought a DS Lite shell a month ago for $9.58 and now I bought a second one from the same store link for $10.02. People see videos like this and they'll buy it anyway even if it's few dollars more (because there isn't other choice or competition) and that's a win for that store.
might be worth getting one of these just to have a cheap gba to mod. soldering a power switch and swapping a screen and shell doesn't sound like a terrible deal
You mentioned something about the speaker not being crackly, and they might've cleaned it with IPA. Is that something that is a reliable fix for crackling speakers, cleaning the surface of the speaker itself?
