@@ParabolicLabsthere’s many collectors that wish and will rally and protest and lobby against such things being recreated so they can keep their investments
None of you claiming they can be remade are thinking about that they literally can't, because that's copyright infringement. Nintendo would pit up a stink as that's intellectual property of them. That's why the only way to emulate these chips is being done by FPGAs. (read end comment)
@@M1n1malisttechnically everything here is copyright infringement. They have the rights to the connectors, plastic molds everything. But they don't care about hardware this old. Only the software which they can re-release as ports/remakes. They won't ever re-release the actual hardware.
Oh man, Tito you totally beat me to it! I'm about halfway through a very similar project and looks like I now have some SERIOUS competition for the best Gameboy out there. Keep up the good work man!
I've been watching the GBA modding scene grow over many years but it's astonishing that someone has even made brand new motherboards with extra features!
i love it, my only concern is that, since they made a new motherboard, why not include a second speaker? there are a tons of smaller ones that sounds good, and there's enough space on the left side anyway.. i would love a gba with stereo sound
As somebody that loathes the side-panned mono speakers of most old portables (and even several smartphones nowadays), I absolutely agree - I'm astonished at the fact that a stereo GBA mod is something no major modder has considered selling
Because then they’d have to start making a second series of shells in every single color variant that they already make that had a grill for the second speaker. Which is double the cost for a board that they don’t know if loads of people will buy or not. Everyone can likely swap a shell, not everyone can desolder and resolder 1” chips.
Exactly, even folks like me with vast electronics experience rather have a pre-assembled kit with a small FPGA or CPLD... My GBA is an older one with no backlight.
Big time agree; when FP makes a kit for Advance like the GBC I will be all in. I don't have the parts to donate; if I had corroded Advances maybe this would make sense, but I would more readily buy net new
I think that, the way technology is evolving, an FPGA for the GBA (or an FPGBA, hah!) is a matter of when, not if. We just need to wait until a good soul releases it lol
Well, I have seen broken GBAs with the cpu and ram intact, the "broken" bits are other important stuff like the board or a massive amount of other components that would classify the GBA as "junk" , this kit is definitely a game changer, this would revive those ones I saw across the years. I am definitely tempted to pick up a few GBAs to try. Excellent video, and keep up the good work!!!
Just ripped the big capacitor pad on a very good condition og gba recently, so kinda bummed I have to fix it or get it fixed now. This video reminded me that funnyplaying makes gba boards now, so while I might not have a near perfect oem gba anymore, I still have this really cool alternative to save the gba in future. Great video as always, tito.
@@ChewyChicken589 ye, i had 3 seperate dead GBAs, and all of them just needed the big one replaced. it was very frustrating to fix as my first soldering project
Price, Tito. You need to make it a point to more actively consider price as a pro or a con in your pros and cons list more regularly. Price-to-quality is usually the biggest factor in whether people will get a thing or not.
I did this mod recently, and it's become my favorite modded GameBoy. I think the biggest sell is that the audio is suuuper clean. My earbuds (ER4XR) are super sensitive to hissing and I couldn't use them *at all* with the original GBA motherboard. This upgraded motherboard has zero hissing whatsoever.
Yes! I have this motherboard and the audio quality is amazing. no more hiss or hum from the headphone jack, even when the Game Boy isn't making a sound. The audio is so clean that the only noise you will hear is the static fringing around some sounds from the 8-bit quantization. This, of course, is a limitation in the digital hardware of the GBA and can't be circumvented. I feel this youtuber glazed over the sound quality aspect of this new motherboard and only mentioned the additional loudness of the speaker. I think an A/B comparison of the lack of hum straight to the youtube audio track would have been a compelling demonstration.
I bought this last year when it came out. This mod taught me how to solder. I hated soldering, and was hopelessly bad at it. I wanted one of these so bad that I decided to conquer my soldering woes once and for all. While waiting for the parts I practiced desoldering and soldering on a broken PC motherboard. When the time came to build the GBA, it worked first try! Now that I know how to solder I've gone down the rabbit hole of countless other projects that I was previously unable to do. Btw, this mod was so fun I built 4 of them, sold 3, and kept one for myself. I built the first one by removing the chipset from my dead GBA (after trying literally everything to save it), and the other 3 I just ordered the donar chipsets from HHL.
I wish FunnyPlaying would do a version of the board with no LEDs. If I bought one, I'd turn them off and then put it in a non-clear case. I'd rather not pay for them, and rather not have them potentially turn back on and drain the battery.
You can just turn them off and the board remembers your settings. I leave mine off most of the time and it's not really an issue. Also removing the LEDs woukd only save them like $1-$2 in production cost, doesn't really make sense to produce a separate board without LEDs.
I wish they would make it take three buttons to activate the LEDs because those of us who like to play platformers like Donkey Kong Country have issues with this because we hold the B button to run and then tap A to jump which sets off the LED settings.
I’d definitely be up for that. The micro is definitely underserved with regard to mods and parts. I still haven’t tried those replacement metal shells yet
@@MachoNachoProductionsthe tolerances on all the ones I have tried is pretty bad. I would love a new brass or aluminum shell maybe with a full glass face plate
Hey man, recently had my eyes opened to GB modding and upgrading, your vids have been so fun and informative to watch. I've recently found my old GBC in storage, and seeing these videos has me thinking if it'd be possible to re-shell any kind of GBA into a GBC shell, with modifications of course. Thanks for the awesome content, and keep up the amazing work.
I wish you showed in a bit more detail how you got solder onto the pins. Did you add a bit of solder to the soldering iron tip and then spread? or a bit of solder to the first pin? when soldering each of the chips to the new board. Thank you for the rest of the details in this video and all of your videos.
Best way to start in the weekend! Thanks for the excellent videos you keep providing Tito ! The gba looks stunning - maybe I'll give it a try. Would be my first chip transfer and I am very curious how I handle it 😁
if i made a handheld or even a console and saw people doing this 20 odd years later i would be so proud of the people behind it, its clear alot of work and care goes into keeping tech alive and its just awsome :D
Watching you put in the shoulder buttons so easily makes mad lol. Because when I did a shell swap on my original GBA it took me 4 hrs, because the shoulder buttons kept popping out
- Game Boy Advance used $70 - Motherboard Replacement $63 - Advance Laminated 3.0 IPS Kit $60 - USB-C Rechargeable Battery mod $42 - Advance Laminated Ready Shells $15 - Metal Buttons $31 - Silicone membranes $4 - Shipping fees $10 - Customs fees ... (We will imagine that we have the technical tools to desolder the circuits) -> Total around $300
Buy everything from funnyplaying for lower cost. Also I buy GBAs often for like $25-$35, just need to buy junk consoles especially since all you are doing is stealing the CPU and RAM. For my last build the breakdown was more like this: GBA: $25 New motherboard: $49 IPS screen: $45 Shell: $9.90 Buttons: $3.90 Membranes: $1.90 Battery: $29.90 Total cost: $164.60. You can even lower this cost more by buying different parts on Aliexpress from hispeedido or cloud game store. True the metal buttons woukd add more cost, but really you can get chrome electroplated ones on Ali for like $4.
Buy everything from funnyplaying for lower cost. Also I buy GBAs often for like $25-$35, just need to buy junk consoles especially since all you are doing is stealing the CPU and RAM. For my last build the breakdown was more like this: GBA: $25 New motherboard: $49 IPS screen: $45 Shell: $9.90 Buttons: $3.90 Membranes: $1.90 Battery: $29.90 Total cost: $164.60. You can even lower this cost more by buying different parts on Aliexpress from hispeedido or cloud game store. True the metal buttons woukd add more cost, but really you can get chrome electroplated ones on Ali for like $4.
All this needs to be just right is two upgraded speakers in stereo, I would mind the speakers with extra thickness with their own larger encloser's to give the GBA better audio, 2 3watt speakers and 2 0.5 watt tweeters would do the job nicely.
At this point now I'm imagining a Game Boy advanced SP circuit board that uses the same chips from a Game Boy advanced and then a Game Boy advanced circuit board that uses SP chips lol
I'd love to see basically what you guys are doing woth the ThickBoy SP. Give us more space and add stuff. Though, with the USB charging already being possible and the AUX port already being there, I'm not sure what else would need to be added besides wireless charging.
Looks fantastic, seeing all the legs of a chip soldered fresh is always so satisfying, great job. HOw is the D-pad, that was always my problem with the OG GBA, it just felt mushy.
Every few years I go back to my Gameboy advanced stuff and get addicted for a few months. I modded my own backlit gba back when ppl were still soldering them. I actually play it with a point of pride now that I actually learned to solder just for the project 😅
Absolutely love the original Game Boy Advance form factor, another great video! For me personally though since I have a steam deck there's really no point in ever doing something like this anymore.
I still have my original clear purple GBA (which is now more of a frosted white with a very faint hint of purple), and it's still working fine. The only things I might change/mod at some point are a backlit screen and a battery pack (because chewing through normal batteries is bad and running on Ni-MH cells is annoying with the constantly flickering power LED...). Replacements boards are nice to keep old devices running, but as others said, I find the RGBlingbling totally unnecessary... (Oh, and thanks Tito, I just pulled my GBA out of a cupboard and checked if my old FFTA save is still alive. It is(!) and reminded me that 130+ hours of my youth went into that game xD
Your video on the funny playing GBC kit inspired me to build my own custom one, if I had a GBA and the soldering skills I would definitely be trying this out also. I love how clear and easy to follow your videos are!
Just want to say that after building a funnyplaying gameboy color, I was eager to do this GBA build but had no soldering experience up to this point. Watching this video gave me the courage to learn the skill and give it a shot - took some time and patience, but I was able to get it done even being brand new to this. For anyone watching this and thinking they need to get a hot air gun and all this expensive equipment, I did it with a chip-quick kit, a pinecil usb soldering iron, the flux from Tito's amazon link, a small roll of lead free solder and a small roll of solder braid. Took about 3 hours to remove the old chips, clean up the pins and remove the chip quick alloy, and resolder to the new mother board and clean up my bridges. Still waiting on the screen to come in stock, but I plugged in the battery to test it - it turned on, you could hear the sound, the LEDs lit up, and if I plug a cartridge into the slot, you can hear the game starting. Can't wait for the screens to get in so I can finish the build!
I would love to see a behind-the-scenes about how you do the product shot flyarounds during the intro (not the turntable identity part but like, the bit at 0:40)
Would be cool if someone made this mobo with EZ-Flash Omega chips built in and MicroSD slot. Saving cartridge slot to keep using original cartridges and devices, like GB Camera, wireless modules, etc.
The single greatest thing about all these projects is the ability to save otherwise dead systems as you said at the beginning. Brilliant stuff from our always amazing community.
You forgot to mention that it doesn't support the traditional sleep mode that some games included and instead implements a button combination to enable and disable a hardware sleep mode.
For me, the shape of the first Game Boy Advance is the best. It's a shame that this mod mainly looks like a Christmas tree. However, a much bigger screen and stereo speakers would have been beneficial for fans like me.
I love the shape of the first Gameboy Advance especially it's default indigo color. Nothing says 2001 to me like a rectangular indigo GBA, and an Indigo GameCube.
Hey Tito I just love watching your videos, they inspired me to fix my old consoles and was able from watching your videos to learn how to solder really good! Thank you
Is it possible to pass the digital audio to some sort of bridge/bluetooth transmitter? That is the one missing upgrade, to play while listening to sound over a Bluetooth headset.
idk the upgraded audio feels a littel too saturated, or maybe it's just an effect of recording the audio through a microphone and actually sounds crisp and clear irl
If they could figure out how to make space on the PCB to put a controls cheat sheet in silk screen or etched copper, that'd be a good addition. Wouldn't help anyone with an opaque case, but would be a nice extra bonus for the transparent shells. Might also help them make even more transparent shell sales.
Nice. A lot of this kits play the "preservation" card, but there's almost always a "but". "Oh, you can preserve your old console, but we left out this original functionality, too bad if you wanna use it". This one doesn't sacrifice anything. And I'm glad that there's an option to turn off the LEDs. All this blinking lights make it look like a cheap toy, in my opinion. I wish every RGB component had the option to turn off the LEDs. I don't need my GPU, my fans or my controller to glow.
What are you preserving if you just have an all brand new gameboy? Its like that mind game, how many boards do you have to replace on the ship, before its no longer the old ship, but a whole new ship? This is basically just a brand new modern gameboy.
Saying this looks awesome is an understatement, this is magnificent. After all these years with all these mods, I am gonna have to make one of these gems.
i dont know, i've done every type of "upgrades" and i honestly can say that nothing is a upgrade except screens and batteries. all that other stuff is just show off or good for display. and i seriously dont get peoples obsession with rgb lights. and i hate to say, but that speaker just sounded worse. the distortion or higher frequency was even worse. i still have yet to see a perfect upgraded GBA that would be worth purchasing as a stand-alone product. and i adore the GBA but maybe thats the magic of the gba, its just that good that its only flaws are the screen....and of course better battery is allways a compliment.
Now we just need someone to make those chips.
I don't think so... it has never been the case. FPGA is the only solution everyone uses to "mimic" the old chip architecture.
@@ParabolicLabsthere’s many collectors that wish and will rally and protest and lobby against such things being recreated so they can keep their investments
@@kanesmith8271 Modders are not moronic collectors, someone gets their hands on the BP's, theyre getting remade at some point.
None of you claiming they can be remade are thinking about that they literally can't, because that's copyright infringement. Nintendo would pit up a stink as that's intellectual property of them. That's why the only way to emulate these chips is being done by FPGAs. (read end comment)
@@M1n1malisttechnically everything here is copyright infringement. They have the rights to the connectors, plastic molds everything. But they don't care about hardware this old. Only the software which they can re-release as ports/remakes. They won't ever re-release the actual hardware.
After 21, years 3 generation of handheld console, 8 different machines, and 1 ips screen upgrade and 1 rebuild. I finally finish Metroid fusion.
Same Here 😂
Next step: manufacture our own Nintendo CPU and RAM chips... Somehow...?
fpga hardware emulate it all.
Like the funny playing fpga GBC
Oh man, Tito you totally beat me to it! I'm about halfway through a very similar project and looks like I now have some SERIOUS competition for the best Gameboy out there. Keep up the good work man!
You gonna make a wooden gba aren’t you 😂
atleast tito doesn't clickbait his titles lol
Watch him overclock it with a custom water cooled aluminum back.
please include bluetooth for headphones. If I had time I could do the same. Maybe when I retire, but I do not see a reason, because of Anbernic RG34XX
This is great! I have a board that I ripped a few pads off of by accident. Now I can salvage the chips and rebuild that GBA
Nice! Another game boy saved 🙏
Sounds like the speaker is distorting at that volume.
i think this is caused more by the air vents than the actual driver.
The gba audio was bad to begin with, its just more obvious when its louder
I really love your videos. They’re so detailed. Hoping to build a Gameboy like this one one day. Thanks for sharing
I've been watching the GBA modding scene grow over many years but it's astonishing that someone has even made brand new motherboards with extra features!
Always up for more GB videos.
i love it, my only concern is that, since they made a new motherboard, why not include a second speaker? there are a tons of smaller ones that sounds good, and there's enough space on the left side anyway.. i would love a gba with stereo sound
As somebody that loathes the side-panned mono speakers of most old portables (and even several smartphones nowadays), I absolutely agree - I'm astonished at the fact that a stereo GBA mod is something no major modder has considered selling
Because then they’d have to start making a second series of shells in every single color variant that they already make that had a grill for the second speaker. Which is double the cost for a board that they don’t know if loads of people will buy or not. Everyone can likely swap a shell, not everyone can desolder and resolder 1” chips.
I agree, but I wonder what they would do with the Start and Select buttons. They'd need to stay put.
ohw man, I wish this was a fgpa like the gbc kit.
Exactly, even folks like me with vast electronics experience rather have a pre-assembled kit with a small FPGA or CPLD... My GBA is an older one with no backlight.
All that's left is a (hypothetical) replacement FP-GBA botherboard
Big time agree; when FP makes a kit for Advance like the GBC I will be all in. I don't have the parts to donate; if I had corroded Advances maybe this would make sense, but I would more readily buy net new
I think that, the way technology is evolving, an FPGA for the GBA (or an FPGBA, hah!) is a matter of when, not if. We just need to wait until a good soul releases it lol
It's not portable, but the MiSTer FPGA has a pretty solid GBA core.
These console mods are mind blowing it never gets old
Well, I have seen broken GBAs with the cpu and ram intact, the "broken" bits are other important stuff like the board or a massive amount of other components that would classify the GBA as "junk" , this kit is definitely a game changer, this would revive those ones I saw across the years.
I am definitely tempted to pick up a few GBAs to try.
Excellent video, and keep up the good work!!!
Dude I love your content so much its inspired me to make my own handhelds. Thank-you so much
Thank you 🙏That makes me so happy to hear!
Just ripped the big capacitor pad on a very good condition og gba recently, so kinda bummed I have to fix it or get it fixed now. This video reminded me that funnyplaying makes gba boards now, so while I might not have a near perfect oem gba anymore, I still have this really cool alternative to save the gba in future. Great video as always, tito.
Sorry to hear about your gba. thankfully we now we have the parts to repair them!
That big capacitor is a problem because I think they glue it down. You have to use a heat gun
@@ChewyChicken589 ye, i had 3 seperate dead GBAs, and all of them just needed the big one replaced. it was very frustrating to fix as my first soldering project
how about you give it to someone who actually knows their stuff to repair rather than killing it completely and takes it heart out?
@@user-yk1cw8im4h Thanks for your contribution, it was SO helpful.
Price, Tito. You need to make it a point to more actively consider price as a pro or a con in your pros and cons list more regularly. Price-to-quality is usually the biggest factor in whether people will get a thing or not.
Exactly, thank you
I did this mod recently, and it's become my favorite modded GameBoy. I think the biggest sell is that the audio is suuuper clean. My earbuds (ER4XR) are super sensitive to hissing and I couldn't use them *at all* with the original GBA motherboard. This upgraded motherboard has zero hissing whatsoever.
Yes! I have this motherboard and the audio quality is amazing. no more hiss or hum from the headphone jack, even when the Game Boy isn't making a sound. The audio is so clean that the only noise you will hear is the static fringing around some sounds from the 8-bit quantization. This, of course, is a limitation in the digital hardware of the GBA and can't be circumvented. I feel this youtuber glazed over the sound quality aspect of this new motherboard and only mentioned the additional loudness of the speaker. I think an A/B comparison of the lack of hum straight to the youtube audio track would have been a compelling demonstration.
I bought this last year when it came out. This mod taught me how to solder. I hated soldering, and was hopelessly bad at it. I wanted one of these so bad that I decided to conquer my soldering woes once and for all. While waiting for the parts I practiced desoldering and soldering on a broken PC motherboard. When the time came to build the GBA, it worked first try! Now that I know how to solder I've gone down the rabbit hole of countless other projects that I was previously unable to do.
Btw, this mod was so fun I built 4 of them, sold 3, and kept one for myself.
I built the first one by removing the chipset from my dead GBA (after trying literally everything to save it), and the other 3 I just ordered the donar chipsets from HHL.
I wish FunnyPlaying would do a version of the board with no LEDs. If I bought one, I'd turn them off and then put it in a non-clear case. I'd rather not pay for them, and rather not have them potentially turn back on and drain the battery.
Couldn’t you just find the power point for them and unsolder? Should be a fairly simple and fast job if somebody finds the correct spot on the PCB
You can just turn them off and the board remembers your settings. I leave mine off most of the time and it's not really an issue. Also removing the LEDs woukd only save them like $1-$2 in production cost, doesn't really make sense to produce a separate board without LEDs.
lol how much do you think those LEDs add to the price exactly?
I wish they would make it take three buttons to activate the LEDs because those of us who like to play platformers like Donkey Kong Country have issues with this because we hold the B button to run and then tap A to jump which sets off the LED settings.
The board is already very inexpensive. It was on sale for $50 a few weeks ago
Only one model is still left aside. Still wishing someone would start making good aluminum shells and parts for the Micro
I’d definitely be up for that. The micro is definitely underserved with regard to mods and parts. I still haven’t tried those replacement metal shells yet
It’s hard to even find decent quality non-OEM faceplates too :(
Just need to put a micro screen in a gba sp, then you can have the smaller screen, plus all the nice shells and such available for the sp :)
When we finally get an FPGBA console that isn't Analogue's I hope they also make a micro one
@@MachoNachoProductionsthe tolerances on all the ones I have tried is pretty bad. I would love a new brass or aluminum shell maybe with a full glass face plate
Hey man, recently had my eyes opened to GB modding and upgrading, your vids have been so fun and informative to watch. I've recently found my old GBC in storage, and seeing these videos has me thinking if it'd be possible to re-shell any kind of GBA into a GBC shell, with modifications of course. Thanks for the awesome content, and keep up the amazing work.
I wish you showed in a bit more detail how you got solder onto the pins. Did you add a bit of solder to the soldering iron tip and then spread? or a bit of solder to the first pin? when soldering each of the chips to the new board. Thank you for the rest of the details in this video and all of your videos.
Best way to start in the weekend! Thanks for the excellent videos you keep providing Tito !
The gba looks stunning - maybe I'll give it a try. Would be my first chip transfer and I am very curious how I handle it 😁
That makes me happy! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
if i made a handheld or even a console and saw people doing this 20 odd years later i would be so proud of the people behind it, its clear alot of work and care goes into keeping tech alive and its just awsome :D
Watching you put in the shoulder buttons so easily makes mad lol. Because when I did a shell swap on my original GBA it took me 4 hrs, because the shoulder buttons kept popping out
- Game Boy Advance used $70
- Motherboard Replacement $63
- Advance Laminated 3.0 IPS Kit $60
- USB-C Rechargeable Battery mod $42
- Advance Laminated Ready Shells $15
- Metal Buttons $31
- Silicone membranes $4
- Shipping fees $10
- Customs fees ...
(We will imagine that we have the technical tools to desolder the circuits)
-> Total around $300
I'm going to mortgage my house and I'm coming back 😅
Thanks
Buy everything from funnyplaying for lower cost. Also I buy GBAs often for like $25-$35, just need to buy junk consoles especially since all you are doing is stealing the CPU and RAM.
For my last build the breakdown was more like this:
GBA: $25
New motherboard: $49
IPS screen: $45
Shell: $9.90
Buttons: $3.90
Membranes: $1.90
Battery: $29.90
Total cost: $164.60.
You can even lower this cost more by buying different parts on Aliexpress from hispeedido or cloud game store. True the metal buttons woukd add more cost, but really you can get chrome electroplated ones on Ali for like $4.
Buy everything from funnyplaying for lower cost. Also I buy GBAs often for like $25-$35, just need to buy junk consoles especially since all you are doing is stealing the CPU and RAM.
For my last build the breakdown was more like this:
GBA: $25
New motherboard: $49
IPS screen: $45
Shell: $9.90
Buttons: $3.90
Membranes: $1.90
Battery: $29.90
Total cost: $164.60.
You can even lower this cost more by buying different parts on Aliexpress from hispeedido or cloud game store. True the metal buttons woukd add more cost, but really you can get chrome electroplated ones on Ali for like $4.
Yikes. Changing the motherboard makes absolutely no sense and is just sinful. 1) too expensive 2) stock motherboard never dies
All this needs to be just right is two upgraded speakers in stereo, I would mind the speakers with extra thickness with their own larger encloser's to give the GBA better audio, 2 3watt speakers and 2 0.5 watt tweeters would do the job nicely.
At this point now I'm imagining a Game Boy advanced SP circuit board that uses the same chips from a Game Boy advanced and then a Game Boy advanced circuit board that uses SP chips lol
0:34 HOW DID YOU DO THAT SPINNING INTO OMG
12:20 turn it off
that's what i wanted to hear. i hate that blinking light shit so god damn much
I'd love to see basically what you guys are doing woth the ThickBoy SP. Give us more space and add stuff. Though, with the USB charging already being possible and the AUX port already being there, I'm not sure what else would need to be added besides wireless charging.
Looks fantastic, seeing all the legs of a chip soldered fresh is always so satisfying, great job. HOw is the D-pad, that was always my problem with the OG GBA, it just felt mushy.
I remember the OG-gba being more comfortable, but the SP was hands down more responsive!
Great video as always Tito! Love your color selection, very Samus color scheme!!
so much advancement in these new PCBs, it's crazy!
It'd have been cool if they could figure out a way to make the LEDs match what's going on the screen (like those ambient backlights for TV's).
Awesome my dude you have come such a long way ;)
that system is so clean man omg
For over $200 altogether I'd have liked it to be FGPA to be honest but it's a promising start.
Every few years I go back to my Gameboy advanced stuff and get addicted for a few months. I modded my own backlit gba back when ppl were still soldering them. I actually play it with a point of pride now that I actually learned to solder just for the project 😅
Looks great!
Don’t forget to put the copper cooling on the battery 😊
It's so pretty and shiny and I wanna snuggle it
I've built three GBAs with the replacement motherboard so far. It's such a nice upgrade. Great video covering the process!
Absolutely love the original Game Boy Advance form factor, another great video!
For me personally though since I have a steam deck there's really no point in ever doing something like this anymore.
I still have my original clear purple GBA (which is now more of a frosted white with a very faint hint of purple), and it's still working fine. The only things I might change/mod at some point are a backlit screen and a battery pack (because chewing through normal batteries is bad and running on Ni-MH cells is annoying with the constantly flickering power LED...). Replacements boards are nice to keep old devices running, but as others said, I find the RGBlingbling totally unnecessary...
(Oh, and thanks Tito, I just pulled my GBA out of a cupboard and checked if my old FFTA save is still alive. It is(!) and reminded me that 130+ hours of my youth went into that game xD
I love getting notified of a new video from you Tito. They are always interesting and entertaining. Keep up the good work!
So happy you’re enjoying the channel 🙏 thank you for the kind words!!
6:35 Thank GOODNESS you cleaned off the flux. Kinda triggers me how seemingly no one ever does it.
Your video on the funny playing GBC kit inspired me to build my own custom one, if I had a GBA and the soldering skills I would definitely be trying this out also. I love how clear and easy to follow your videos are!
Just want to say that after building a funnyplaying gameboy color, I was eager to do this GBA build but had no soldering experience up to this point.
Watching this video gave me the courage to learn the skill and give it a shot - took some time and patience, but I was able to get it done even being brand new to this.
For anyone watching this and thinking they need to get a hot air gun and all this expensive equipment, I did it with a chip-quick kit, a pinecil usb soldering iron, the flux from Tito's amazon link, a small roll of lead free solder and a small roll of solder braid. Took about 3 hours to remove the old chips, clean up the pins and remove the chip quick alloy, and resolder to the new mother board and clean up my bridges.
Still waiting on the screen to come in stock, but I plugged in the battery to test it - it turned on, you could hear the sound, the LEDs lit up, and if I plug a cartridge into the slot, you can hear the game starting. Can't wait for the screens to get in so I can finish the build!
I think there was only one thing missing: Bluetooth.
I'm from Brazil! Big Fan!!
Thanks for the link to that pickup tool!
You’re welcome!
I think you forgot the heatsink for the USBC charging.
I would love to see a behind-the-scenes about how you do the product shot flyarounds during the intro (not the turntable identity part but like, the bit at 0:40)
Nice one, Tito. The metal buttons are pretty cool😎 It crazy how far they went with the adjustments you can do to the leds😮👍🏻✨️✨️✨️
Would be cool if someone made this mobo with EZ-Flash Omega chips built in and MicroSD slot. Saving cartridge slot to keep using original cartridges and devices, like GB Camera, wireless modules, etc.
The single greatest thing about all these projects is the ability to save otherwise dead systems as you said at the beginning. Brilliant stuff from our always amazing community.
You forgot to mention that it doesn't support the traditional sleep mode that some games included and instead implements a button combination to enable and disable a hardware sleep mode.
Love when I get a notification for one of your new videos 💪.... Awesome
For me, the shape of the first Game Boy Advance is the best. It's a shame that this mod mainly looks like a Christmas tree. However, a much bigger screen and stereo speakers would have been beneficial for fans like me.
I love the shape of the first Gameboy Advance especially it's default indigo color. Nothing says 2001 to me like a rectangular indigo GBA, and an Indigo GameCube.
Kids these days want RGB in everything.
Why complain about LEDs when you can just turn them off?
@@hornymonk23 The led on this Game Boy Advance is like putting a red nose on the Mona Lisa.
@@mindustrial The Game Boy Advance is too serious to be used by kids... I'm joking, of course.
Great video! I hope Funny Playing will release a no solder FPGA GBA like they did with the GBC.
Hey Tito I just love watching your videos, they inspired me to fix my old consoles and was able from watching your videos to learn how to solder really good! Thank you
That audio at 14 47 with upgraded amp was sickening to listen to
I still miss the original squishy L and R, i don't like the micro buttons feel and complex repaiability :/ other than that, great pcb!
The LED customization instructions are something that I would end up keeping in the battery compartment,,,
That’s a really good idea. They’re definitely not easy to remember 😅
Missed opportunity to do screen space coloring with the leds
Tack!
Thank you!! 🙏
Can't wait for an N64 motherboard like this. Might be the easiest way to get HDMI output without hurting the shell
We have the technology: we can rebuild him.
Is it possible to pass the digital audio to some sort of bridge/bluetooth transmitter? That is the one missing upgrade, to play while listening to sound over a Bluetooth headset.
Can't wait for the FPGA GBA
I really wish there were replacement GBA SP motherboards, especially because I just ruined my current one by accident.
idk the upgraded audio feels a littel too saturated, or maybe it's just an effect of recording the audio through a microphone and actually sounds crisp and clear irl
If they could figure out how to make space on the PCB to put a controls cheat sheet in silk screen or etched copper, that'd be a good addition. Wouldn't help anyone with an opaque case, but would be a nice extra bonus for the transparent shells. Might also help them make even more transparent shell sales.
👍The intro 360 degree look is sick 🔥
I've got a Super Nintendo that's forgotten how to scale and rotate properly. You think soldering the pins of the video chip would help relieve that?
The content I didn’t know I needed
Nice. A lot of this kits play the "preservation" card, but there's almost always a "but". "Oh, you can preserve your old console, but we left out this original functionality, too bad if you wanna use it". This one doesn't sacrifice anything.
And I'm glad that there's an option to turn off the LEDs. All this blinking lights make it look like a cheap toy, in my opinion. I wish every RGB component had the option to turn off the LEDs. I don't need my GPU, my fans or my controller to glow.
Love these videos 😅 if they ever make amoled version of this mod I won’t be able to say no
Great video! I'm still hoping for a FPGBA soderless mod lol.
Me too! I’m sure we’ll see one
yeah, at this point i wish these GBA upgrade mods just included a new Menu Button
Lets add 40 rgb lights for no reason
@@korrina i mean yeah, but also all these mods are sold with the assumption you're gonna use the IPS screen mods & those ALSO have their own OSD menus
What are you preserving if you just have an all brand new gameboy? Its like that mind game, how many boards do you have to replace on the ship, before its no longer the old ship, but a whole new ship? This is basically just a brand new modern gameboy.
The CPU/ brain of the original game boy was saved, so it’s like giving it a shiny new ass like Bender the robot than replacing it as a whole system
Love that this stuff exists because I’m getting sick of my Analogue Pocket’s horrible dpad.
I'm trying to save money man stop with the cool gba vids 😆
Haha, I do apologize 🙏
Where are any mother bkard upgrades? Bluetooth wirless audio, wireless charging, hdmi out?
Saying this looks awesome is an understatement, this is magnificent.
After all these years with all these mods, I am gonna have to make one of these gems.
your work is art! im super impressed! well done!
The production on these videos is off the scale.
Such an incredible move forward for GBA preservation! And $60 is a great deal for replacing an irreparable GBA motherboard. Great highlight, Tito.
Amazing content, as always!
Thank you 🙏
truth be told I was never that big of a fan of the feel of orginal gba mushy buttons dont feel good to me but this, this is nice
Are you familiar with the thought experiment the Ship of Theseus in the field of identity metaphysics?
With this colors it would do a fantastic Christmas mod
It's cool like an old pinball machine style, really like it alot, great job!
It looks amazing!! Pretty cool hybrid.
Perfect timing, I just ordered this board last week lmao
11:30 Golden Sun is one of favorite games of all time
To be honest I was first worried this was a full emu build, but glad I was proven wrong. Thanks for the chill video. *cheers*
Awesome video tito. They really make good quality stuff
wow. This is one hell of a commercial
i dont know, i've done every type of "upgrades" and i honestly can say that nothing is a upgrade except screens and batteries.
all that other stuff is just show off or good for display. and i seriously dont get peoples obsession with rgb lights.
and i hate to say, but that speaker just sounded worse. the distortion or higher frequency was even worse.
i still have yet to see a perfect upgraded GBA that would be worth purchasing as a stand-alone product. and i adore the GBA but maybe thats the magic of the gba, its just that good that its only flaws are the screen....and of course better battery is allways a compliment.
Awesome mod, looks really clean with that mobo and clear shell.