How To Repair a Gameboy Screen

*Do this repair at your own risk, I am not responsible if you mess it up*

First off, I got my hands on this old "non-functioning" original grey fat Gameboy (DMG-01). When I powered it on I could see the screen was largely blank and areas with a picture had lines all through it. Thankfully repairing it is easy enough assuming you can get your hands on the right tools.

Feel free to watch the video first or while you're doing this:

Tools:

Tri-wing screwdriver
Philips screwdriver
*Sorry I don't know the official size, but usually sites that sell them specify whether it works on a Gameboy
Soldering iron
4x AA Batteries 
Static bracelet (not required, but be careful not to shock the internals)

1. Remove the battery cover and batteries from the unit. There are two tri-wing screws in the battery compartment. There are another four on the rear outside of the unit as well.

2. Once removed the two halves will separate. Inside there is a ribbon cable that connects the LCD circuit board to the rear half of the Gameboy's other circuit board. If you seperate the two halves just enough to get your hand in there it's easy to remove. The ribbon cable is not secured in any way. If you're facing the front of the Gameboy, you're pull the cable straight down towards the bottom of the Gameboy, opposite where the cartridge is inserted. It fits snugly, so try and pull evenly across the cable.

3. On the LCD circuit board, you want to remove the 8 or so Philips screws holding it in place. Once removed the circuit board should pop out with minimal effort. If not, double or triple check you removed every screw.

4. Once the LCD circuit board is loose, separate it from the plastic front. Don't be surprised if the buttons and/or the silicon behind them falls out, don't worry, they're easy to put back in.

Both halves of the Gameboy, the front (left) without the cover

Both halves of the Gameboy, the front (left) without the cover

5. Looking at the screen you'll see a brown plastic ribbon cable from the board to the screen. Behind it are the tiny wires you need to heat to fix the connection. First though, you need to remove the black rubber strip that sits on top of it. A knife or flat-head screwdriver should work fine to pull it off. On my unit a strip of glue underneath it stay on the board. Again, I just used a flat-head and it pulled right off. Once you have it all clean it's time to heat up your soldering iron.

6. While you're waiting for your soldering iron to heat, reinstall the batteries and reattach the ribbon cable from the front circuit board to the back resting the unit on a flat surface. Turn the Gameboy on without a cartridge in it and turn the contrast to its darkest point. This makes it easy to see the defective areas and notice when they're fixed.

See the traces below the shielding and where they meet the LCD

See the traces below the shielding and where they meet the LCD

7. You want to heat just below the lower side of the front of the screen where the contacts and brown plastic meet. This fairly heat-resistant material, that said, try not to stay in one place longer that 3 or 4 seconds, come back to an area later if needed. Run the tip of the soldering iron back and forth and you'll notice the lines on the screen come and go. Don't worry too much about new lines appearing as that's likely to happen. Just keep going back and forth until they're all gone.

Note the area highlighted

8. All going well that should be it, reassemble in reverse. Game on!

All repaired!

Coming soon.. modding the Gameboy!

Guitar Wall Hanger

Hey, look - it's the first project that turned out and I am actually proud of. I really wanted to have my guitars displayed on the wall. I have guitar stands for two of them, but they were mismatched and one wasn't fit for purpose. I looked at a few options to purchase a solution to achieve this goal but none were readily available and all were expensive. So I turned to DIY; which I should have done first.

I saw a few videos on YouTube of people using a piece of crown moulding as a backer and a U-shaped tool holder to hold the guitar. I checked one of these brackets out at the hardware store but they're too small to hold the neck of any of my guitars. I am sure you could bend one to fit, but it seems half-assed and they really weren't too pretty either; coated in bright red rubber. So I went back to the drawing board. Another user had made something sort of similar to what I ultimately built, but he used a mount that was again, purchased online somewhere. I figured then that I would just have to come up with my own idea. In my mind it seemed nice if the hanger would be built completely of wood, so that's what I set out to do. I wanted it to look like it was out of a farm house from forty years ago. I wouldn't say what I built is exactly like that, but it's rustic how I wanted, and aside from a few hidden screws, is completely made of wood.

Materials:

1x6x6 Pine board ($5.99)
3' 3/4" Doweling ($2.99)
1x Small can of Red Mahogany Gel Stain ($8.99)
1x Varnish ($4.99)
4x Mushroom Wood Screw Covers
8x Wood screws

Tools:

Hand saw
Drill (3/4" spade bit, 3/8" drill bit)
File tool or similar to score the edges
Sand paper 1500 or 2000 grit, 400 grit (in my case, I used a powered mouse sander)

Quick tips from doing this project. "Measure twice, cut once!", as the old adage goes. Make sure to sand the surface until it's dull before staining and between varnish coats.

If anyone want to know the steps to building this - let me know.

Here is another shot. Yay!

"Uh, how do you ride a motorbike?"

Not like this :)

Something I should warn others about, and I should have known better, is to learn to ride before you buy a motorbike (at least have your license, which I also didn't have). I am all for self-directed learning, but out on the streets mixed with traffic is a bit much. Thankfully the street where I live is fairly quiet.

Delivery was a mixture of feelings when the bike finally arrived. I could have technically driven it home had I had my license, but likely wouldn't have been a good idea. Once the excitement of having the biggest, most expensive toy I have ever owned fizzled out, the reality faced me that I had to learn how to ride it sunk in. With a massive 34.8" seat height, I could barely reach the pavement with my toes; even at 6'. The suspension has since relaxed quite a bit, and the confidence of practice makes the height very comfortable. I any event, with no previous motorbike, dirt bike, manual car experience I was a bit antsy about going out for the first time. I had no choice but to just give it a whirl.

I think the singular thing that helped the most was practicing where the clutch starts to engage the drive system. With no gas during any of the process, have the bike in gear and just slowly let out the clutch. When the bike starts to move you know that's where it engages. Practicing pulling in and letting out that position makes all the difference. The second and seemingly just as important thing for me to learn is that you can have gas and clutch at the same time. It's okay to "ride the clutch". On a car it's completely different and that's what tripped me up quite a bit. I would try and release the clutch just as I was giving it gas, which is ideal, but the bike is so temperamental I kept stalling it. The flip side of the coin is that there is so much torque that if you give it just a bit too much mustard the bike is likely going to leave you on the road behind. Which is exactly what happened not long after my first outing. Just a bit too much gas the front wheel cork-screwed when I hit the curb dumping myself and the bike - that's how you learn though!

While I had no training of any sort, I was fortunate to have a lot of practice time behind the bars. The more I rode the more comfortable I got. Having well over a decade of driving experience in all manner of four, or more, wheeled vehicles I was very humbled by the uneasiness I felt out with traffic on a bike. On the bike it felt completely foreign. Mingling with traffic was as new as drivers ed back in high school. It's all part and parcel of the experience however and what an experience it has been.

It's now a year later and I have more stories to tell. Stay tuned.

Motorpsycho - The Beginning...

I have never owned, rode or even had been around motorbikes, dirt bikes or any of the sort while growing up. Nor did I know anyone who had. So it was sort of out of the blue that I ended up owning one.


Ever since I went on this dune-buggy "adventure" while on a trip south, I have had the itch for motorized speed. Initially I was looking for the same sort of knock-off dune buggy that I had already spent a bit of time with. After some thought, I came to realize finding trails that would fit the buggy wouldn't be widely available. Especially given my urban location. More over, having to buy the machine, find a trailer and store all of it was not in the cards.

ATV's were the next idea. However, the same problems presented themselves. I would need a trailer, storage and a chunk of time to haul myself and the machine to an area where I could ride. It just wasn't feasible.

I had almost given up on the idea when I came across this Kawasaki dual-sport/enduro bike. I am not sure why, but dirt bikes and motorcycles never really came to mind. The bike seemed like the jack of all trades. I could ride the bike to the trails, so no trailer - check. I could go virtually anywhere - check. I wouldn't need an enormous amount of storage - check. The only small problem was that I had zero idea how to actually ride it.

So, quite out of nowhere, and amidst three days of negotiation - I ended up with a Kawasaki KLX250S... without any sort of license.

Stay tuned..

Always start with an introduction...

What is this blog, and who is 'Average Dave'?

This blog, to me, is just an outlet - hopefully - for some creativity and motivation to continue to create, explore and drive myself to new areas; both figuratively and literally.

Average Dave, me, is a moniker for myself as I see me. My favorite self-description is, "Jack of all trades, master of nothing." Which really speaks to who I am. I enjoy lots of different hobbies and topics, but I don't shine at any one particular thing. Think if someone asked you, "What are you better at than most other people?" Sounds silly enough, but it bothers me that I don't have a specific answer to that. Saying that you're, "..kind of", good at a number of things really doesn't make you feel all that great.

So here we have this site, which is secondary to my YouTube account of the same name (Average Dave) The YouTube channel is a bit of a mish-mash of various endeavors for me. There are some ridiculous silly videos to be sure.

I have never been the most outgoing sort, but as I have got older I am much less willing to sit on the side-lines. I want to experience new things. This has motivated me to go and seek out new experiences that before I would've shied away from. Where on YouTube it's more a video of these activities without much of any reason, I want this blog to serve as the background and 'meat and potatoes', if you will, of these experiences.

There isn't any particular goal for any of this, other than to serve as further motivation for myself. So here goes my venture into blogging for the first time. Perhaps though, it will motivate others like me to step out into the proverbial wild.