Game Boy Advance 'No Cut' CGS Backlight Kit

This kit is physically drop in to any GBA but soldering is required. Trimming is also not required but would allow the LCD to sit flat within the shell and would provide a better looking finish. I highly recommend trimming.

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My test ROM packs for GB(A):
and "AGS Aging" for GBA button test and LCD calibration

Tools I regularly use (and recommend)

[Venom.]

I've never actually soldered anything before I got this kit, not realizing that soldering was required lol. This video saved me because I had no idea where I was supposed to solder it to, nor what I was doing when it came to that part.

[JimmyGFromDayton]

Hooray! I haven’t watched one of these live in too long.

[thepokerus]

Cloud gaming store finally listen to Makho and added the pixel grid he so much loves and requested, and this pixel grid mode was named: the Makho Grid lol

[DartzSoryu]

I have saw several videos from your channel and many of those point out an issue many of these IPS kits have, and that's the gosthing/artifacting. Turns out it's not the kits fault by themselves, but rather a genral problem with IPS panels, as the same issue can be reproduced, for example, on New 3DS models with IPS panels (using AGB_FIRM or open_AGB_FIRM), DSiXL using GBARunner2 and even I tested on my IPS PC monitor using mGBA, same result.

That flicker transparency effect was solely designed for TFT blurry screens, so any IPS panel will have the ghosting/flicker issue no matter what, becasue the issue are the crystals inside of those, but no one seems to have a clear answer for that. Of course, there are ways to overcome it, for example, adding a inter-frame blending would fix it in some way.

Great videos and keep going with this quality content, really apreciate it!

[Benjamin-rqfi]

Thank you so much for this non-edited install video. Very helpful as a reference to know exactly how all the little ribbon connectors unlatch.... definitely would have broken them. Two big things I learned from this, 1) the Q-tip stalk spacer on the left side (looking from the back) was very necessary for proper alignment otherwise the ribbon on the LCD on the right side creates too much pressure, and 2) I really wish they would solder the wire on the ribbon facing the other direction. I broke my wire trying to close the GBA MoBo latch and re-soldered facing the other way. Much less intrusive. I'm amazed at how well the touch sensor works and kind of neat it lands on the Nintendo logo. Overall SUPER pleased with the screen and new lens; revolutionary. It is just a tad blue. Playing LotR Two towers everything is a tad extra purple, but I really don't mind it. I referenced this and the install from the older kit where you did not cut the shell since I wanted to keep my classic opaque purple OEM shell as original as possible (though I did have to cut the back shell since I also did a usb-c with battery mod). Thank you thank you Mahko!!

[daxtron]

My kit is arriving today and your video has provided me with a lot of confidence that I can do this relatively painlessly. Thanks!!
Update: it went very well, only issue I'm having is with the brightness capacitive sensor being kind of a pain to actually trigger, but it does work. Probably could fix it by thinning out the shell in that spot a bit but I don't really care that much haha

[theleumaseleets]

I ordered one of these kits last week and it arrived on Saturday and I installed it on Sunday. Some of the games I play the most on my GBAs are Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion, and having used the unbranded V2 IPS kit in my main GBA for nearly 2 years now, I can say after less than a week of use that I definitely prefer this mod for when I am playing those games, and will probably be my preferred mod to use with games that either have sleep mode functionality or that regularly have me pressing either of the shoulder buttons and the select button at the same time. I am very happy that I don't have to remember to release the shoulder buttons when I need to press select, and I am glad that I can exit sleep mode without changing the brightness of the screen. The only things that could make this kit better in my opinion would be to use a screen with a warmer color temperature, that's my smallest complaint about the kit, the main thing that would greatly improve the kit would be to add a button combination that you can use to enable/disable the touch sensor so that you can make sure that you don't accidentally change the settings once you get them to your liking.

[VirtuaVillain]

Yoooo a GBA IPS kit with pixel grid?! I hope one of these kit developers look into 'correct' colour space next. Thanks for the hard work on making these vid, makho

[ZippletTech]

Thank you for this! I installed the previous version and I'm quite happy with it, but I'm interested in the idea of adding mode memory so I may take a look at this kit and swap the driver PCB only (and as a bonus it will give me parts to mod a second GBA in the future). As always, thank you for the very detailed video.

[Yore]

A misaligned screen is so frustrating when you notice it.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it unfortunately.

[theleumaseleets]

At some point in the last 4 months the instructions in the pictures on RGRS have been updated to say that the wire should be soldered to pin "2" on the power switch. Someone finally heard Makho when it comes to soldering for the kit. I also noticed that the kit is called a "no cut" kit and not a drop-in kit.

[walter]

JIS screws are japenese industry standard. They've been used by the Tamiya corporation in their rc cars for over 30 years. Readily availy online at a very reasonable price 👍😎

[MilkerMurphy]

I laughed when I saw this kit and they called it solderless because youre supposed to wrap the wire around the terminal.
Certified bruh-moment

[ilgeru-ok]

Thanks, for the tutorial! I bought the same kit, and i dindt know how to install it!... This weeknd ill give it a try :)

[shadowthehedgehog]

The pixel grid mode is nice. I hope one day we get a screen kit with toggle able colour profiles so you can toggle between like muted colours. One of the emulators I think VBA has settings to toggle between profiles mimicking the colours of different stock panels would be cool if we could get that feature on one of the screen kits

[jose]

Gosh I wish I was confident enough to try this! I just got a brand new one from a local guy and I don’t have the guts to do it! Let me send it to you 😂

[walter]

I've just precured one from retro games. I'm in Australia so I wasn't sure who sold them here so I went straight to the source. Those connectors you soldered on, are they polarity specific? Meaning, does it mater what side is soldered to positive and negative

[crutonman]

Was watching a video from a previous version of this backlit kit and it sucks because the link led to this kit that I bought, turns out the link in their solder-less video requires solder now, found out halfway through process lol

[thealqemist]

Great video! It looks awesome. But how bad is it to not solder it and just wrap the wire instead? Because I don't know how to solder and I don't have a soldering kit

Edit: better question, what if you just don't use the wires that are new to this revision? Can they be removed to make it work like the old version?

[AxZelAnimations]

I have a pre-owned GBA with ips in it. Seller didn't indicate much detail so I had to look for all GBA IPS videos and led me here.

It has 8 levels of brightness, 4 normal and 4 grayscale with 3 extra pixel mode each.

Now I don't want to tear it apart yet but the ghost touch is driving me nuts. And for some reason a battery icon showed up on the top right just a few minutes ago. Does this have an OSD?