gameboy macro xl case with speaker holes

GAMEBOY MACRO XL CASE WITH SPEAKER HOLES MOD
GAMEBOY MACRO XL CASE WITH SPEAKER HOLES MODS

I was nervous and had shaky hands, but with patience (don’t rush!), I successfully pulled through. When I initially attempted this mod, it was only my third time holding a soldering iron. While soldering might be tricky, it should be easy enough for beginners to handle. If you were to bridge two pads with solder, that could cause a short, so be careful and keep steady. The resistor is smaller than a grain of rice and there are a dangerous number of solder pads in a very small area. It’s also the hardest step in the whole process.

GAMEBOY MACRO XL CASE WITH SPEAKER HOLES MOD

The most crucial step for this mod is soldering the resistor, which allows the spliced DS Lite to boot without the top screen. If you know your way around a solder joint, you can probably finish the entire mod in under an hour. Keep calm and solder onįor first-time modders, this mod could take as long as two hours to complete. You’ll want to have an X-Acto knife since you’ll have to do some light cutting. For $10 more, you can get the glass screen with a “Game Boy Macro” logo, which I didn’t buy because the font turned me off. At $54, the shell is pricey, but so worth it. Touches like the recessed D-pad and button areas give the modded handheld a more polished feel, and it covers up the X and Y buttons for a cleaner look and more authentic Game Boy Advance layout. It only replaces the surface of the bottom half of the DS Lite, but it makes subtle improvements to the ergonomics and aesthetics. To pretty up your Game Boy Macro and house the new speaker, get Boxy Pixel’s sublime CNC machined aluminum housing shell. The Boxy Pixel shell only replaces the top half of the DS lite housing.

GAMEBOY MACRO XL CASE WITH SPEAKER HOLES MODS

It’s still sort of pricey, but worthwhile hardware mods aren’t cheap - this project is definitely worth splurging. You could cut costs and get the budget down to under $100 by doing without components like the new shell or speaker, or go with a cheaper knockoff toolkit like this one that Input Senior Reviews Editor Raymond Wong recommends, but the finished result may be a less complete Game Boy Macro. If you’re starting from scratch with no DS Lite, components, or tools, the cost for this mod could be as much as $200. I used a busted DS Lite that I’ve had since 2010 and I recommend you do so, too, if you can instead of tearing apart a perfectly functional DS Lite. Total budget: I spent a total of about $150 on this project for all of the parts and tools. iFixit toolkit with bit drivers, tweezers, and spudgers or cheaper alternative.Alejandro Medellin / Input Prep for surgery My modded Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Macro, and GBA SP. While the Game Boy Advance SP has these features, a Game Boy Macro has a horizontal form factor, which makes it more true to the original Game Boy Advance. It can play any Game Boy Advance game (no GB or GBC cartridges, though) and comes with a built-in backlit screen and a replaceable rechargeable battery. I’ve modded my Game Boy Advance and GameBoy Advance SP with new backlit screens, buttons, batteries, and shells, but modding a DS Lite into a Game Boy Macro was, by far, one of the easiest operations I’ve had to perform.īefore we start, why is the DS Lite the perfect Game Boy Advance? Because the bottom half is a Game Boy Advance. Here’s how I made my dream Game Boy Advance. If you’ve got a DS Lite lying around and time to kill, you can hack together your own Game Boy Macro with minimal effort. You can hack together your own Game Boy Macro with minimal effort.įrom these depths, the Game Boy Macro (as dubbed by the modder community), has emerged as arguably the best DIY Game Boy Advance that Nintendo never made. In recent years, avid modder communities have sprung up on Reddit and YouTube and Instagram where people show off how they’ve enhanced their Game Boy Advances with all kinds of new features like new shells, better backlit IPS displays, stronger and louder speakers, and even rechargeable batteries. Though the Game Boy lineup was retired once the Nintendo DS succeeded it, gamers have never stopped loving the Game Boy Advance. Before it was officially discontinued in 2010, Nintendo updated the GBA hardware with two iterations: the Game Boy Advance SP (2001), which added a backlight to the screen (2003) and the Game Boy Micro (2005), which was a shrunken handheld. With its vast library of games from virtually every genre, the Game Boy Advance was an instant hit. The 32-bit handheld was the follow-up to the Game Boy Color, which enjoyed extended life thanks to a hugely popular franchise called Pokémon. Twenty years ago in 2001, Nintendo changed everything with the release of the Game Boy Advance.

Gameboy macro xl case with speaker holes