Missing vertical lines on an original Game Boy are almost always a failed bond between the ribbon cable and the glass. The fix is heat, carefully applied along the edge.
The routine
- Lay kapton along the ribbon edge to protect it.
- Slide the iron slowly at about 280 degrees.
- Power it on after every pass to see which lines come back.
Go slower than you think. The glass is older than most of the people fixing it.
Dee Okafor
Too little and nothing happens. Too much and the polariser bubbles. We use a soldering iron with a wide tip and a strip of kapton tape.
MA
MARA KESTREL
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Member since 2016
6 posts
Tube technician with twenty years on broadcast monitors. Mara runs the Thursday CRT bench and still owns the degaussing coil she built in college.
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Great photos. The one of the chassis with the shield off is going on my wall.
I tried this last winter and skipped the discharge step. Do not skip the discharge step.
Good call on labelling every screw. I learned that the hard way.