GG LED Mod (56k warning)

[Tibia]

I've seen this suggested quite a bit, but I never saw a finished post. It's a pretty simple mod, but the benefits are totally awesome. I took two GGs, one LED modded, one stock, and pulled out the speakers and sound amp. I wanted to know exactly how much better the LEDs performed, and sound was just another variable I didn't need.


I took the tube out, and used the reflector to mount my LEDs. The electrical tape insulates it from the cart shield, so no shorts. I had a dead pocket TV, so I ripped into the lightbox and used the diffuser layers in the GG. The LEDs are also sanded, to minimize bright spots. They're wired in parallel and running off 5V with a resistor.


Stock on the right, LED modded on the left. I tried to get the brightness to match as well as I could. And yes, the brightness knob on the LED unit is fully functional. It's got quite a range of difference.


Closeup of the stock screen.


LED modded screen. Quite a bit easier on the eyes. The light distribution isn't perfect, but I don't really notice it while playing.


I've also discovered that the stock one has to be at an exact angle to be visible. The LED screen isn't quite so finicky. As for battery life, the stock unit crapped out after two hours and forty minutes. I'm using rechargeable cells, so after a full recharge, I tried them on the LED modded one. Six hours and ten minutes later, and they're still going. I'm too damn tired to keep playing, and I won't be able to get back to it for a day or two, so I'm posting my results now.

EDIT: I still don't know left from right. lol

[eurddrue]

oh shizzle! That's awesome! I may do this to my game gear. And 6 hours of batteries! wow!

[lovablechevy]

bout time someone finally tried this! or at least finally tried it and posted the results somewhere!

awesome job, tibia! at least 3x the battery life seems like a good enough reason for anyone with a game gear to do this mod!

[themadhacker]

I have a spare GG somewhere.... Maybe after I replace the capacitors I will try this.

[Tibia]

Thanks for the comments! I ended up taking it with me in the car today, so I have a final answer on the battery life: the modded GG lasted for 8 hours and 45 minutes. Quite a bit more than I expected, actually.

So with the batteries I used, it looks like the unmodded one was drawing about 919 mA per hour, and the modded one 280 mA. Rather impressive, I think.

[eurddrue]

holy bawls! I'm doing this mod definitely.

[lovablechevy]

that is just a crazy difference!

*jots down notes for future reference*

[Tibia]

Seriously, it takes about ten minutes to solder it all up. I spent more time looking for my soldering iron than I did doing this. I'm going to try something tonight, with how I've got the LEDs mounted to see if I can get by without using the diffusing plastic. If my idea works, it'll only take two LEDs instead of three, so battery life could possibly improve even more.

[Life of Brian]

Tibia, it's mods like these that make my world go 'round. That's such an incredible improvement in battery life!

[collinE]

very impressive. that is a whole lot of battery time.

[Tibia]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it!

I switched down to 2 LEDs, mounted in the black rubber holders that held the CFL tube. I don't need diffuser plastic with them mounted like that.


It worked pretty well. It got rid of the bright spots that still showed up even through the diffuser. I tried to measure the draw with my multimeter, but it's still over 250 mA, and blew the fuse in my multimeter. lol



So my next step is to stereo mod it. There's lots of room in it, and left and right audio go to the amplifying daughterboard, so I just have to find where they come off the amp before the headphone jack.

[bacteria]

Excellent work.

I find it amazing that, given the system was given a bad name for horrible battery life that they didn't manufacture the system like you modded yours in the first place with LED's.

[grossaffe]

Excellent work.

I find it amazing that, given the system was given a bad name for horrible battery life that they didn't manufacture the system like you modded yours in the first place with LED's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... tz_law.svg

as you can see on the chart, 1990, the release year of the GameGear, an LED was capable of approximately 1 lumen. In the year 2000, they were capable of approximately 50 lumen. Not quite as useful back then as they are today.

also looks like white LEDs didn't show up until 1993.

[ChrisKoopa]

awesome job

[Triton]

thats damn impressive! sounds like something i need to do