**The Art of Refurbishing Game Boy Advance Units**

As I begin this project, I must admit that I'm excited to work with these little units. However, I also have to acknowledge that they're not entirely original, even if it says "Game Boy" on them. In fact, the original ones didn't say "Game Boy" on them, so it's a bit of a giveaway. Nevertheless, I've decided to go ahead and refurbish these units, making them look as authentic as possible.

**Sticking with Authenticity**

My first step was to sticker the units to make them look real. I never questioned its authenticity before, but now that I'm doing this project, I realize how important it is to maintain the original design. The peel-off of the new "improved" unit was a nice touch, and I didn't actually buy anything to make it look like it wasn't authentic. Instead, I used the stickers provided with the kit to give them a fresh new look.

**Assembling the Units**

Now that I've stickered the units, it's time to assemble them. As I'm making these mistakes non-stop, I hope that you guys will learn from my experiences and avoid similar mistakes. In this case, I noticed that one of the smaller holes didn't fit perfectly with the new unit. Luckily, the kit came with the right size replacement parts, which saved me from having to use the original ones.

**Learning from Mistakes**

One of my biggest takeaways from this project was learning how to work with these units more efficiently. As I was putting everything together, I realized that some of the holes didn't fit perfectly with the new unit, and I had to adjust accordingly. However, with a little patience and attention to detail, I was able to get everything working smoothly.

**The Final Touches**

Once I finished assembling the units, I took a step back to admire my handiwork. The two-tone design turned out quite nicely, and the texture of the plastic was interesting. While I had hoped to finish this project more quickly, it ended up taking longer than expected. Nevertheless, I'm proud of what I've accomplished.

**Comparing with Original Units**

Now that I have both refurbished units, I'll be comparing them with original Game Boy Advance units. As I press on the different parts, I notice that they're not significantly weaker or stronger than each other. However, one unit does seem to have a slightly better door fit than the other.

**The Verdict**

Overall, I'm impressed with how well these refurbished units turned out. While there were some minor mistakes along the way, they didn't affect the overall quality of the product. If you're looking to modernize your Game Boy Advance, I would recommend checking out these kits. They offer a great opportunity to enjoy classic games in a new, updated shell.

**A Learning Experience**

As for me, this project was an eye-opener. I learned a lot about how to work with these units more efficiently and how to troubleshoot common problems. While it took some time and effort, the end result was well worth it. And as always, I hope that my mistakes will help you avoid similar pitfalls in your own projects.

**Next Time**

That's all for now, folks! If you're looking for links to purchase these kits or want to learn more about refurbishing Game Boy Advance units, be sure to check out the resources below. Until next time, it's game over.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enokay welcome back to another episode of the last game hunter and today oh and thank you for tuning in i just want to make that clear we love you here we're going to take a look at these uh already beat up let's see the camera there yeah i see that we're going to take care of these nice old beat up butt working game boy advances and this one's not as bad but i mean it's it's still got its things um i bought these two purposely to reshell and show you guys how it's done and some special types of shells so first we'll unbox and take a look at what i bought and then we'll get into the refinishing of these bad boys okay so in this box here we'll call it box number one and this one we'll call do all right so what do we got in here so right off the bat we got some tools hey they gave us some tools and kind of hard i'm playing around with the new camera set up here and it's freaking me out uh i got a overhead system i don't think i've ever done a review on it all right let's take a look at this what we got here is the super mario 30th i guess edition or or like a uh a little you know collectible for 30 years or something like that maybe for the game boy i'm not sure i don't know how long they've been around but anyway let's uh open this all up and see everything that we get oh that feels weird that feels really really weird i'm sure they're just laid there because there's no real press to them so they probably have like a cardboard or something inside keeping them in place for looks but it really feels i'll have to see if the other one feels like it but it's kind of got this interesting finish i must say and uh this piece here of course we get the uh screws and new plugs and the cover for you know whatever you need there for it and we get a brand new screen there see it all right and then we have oh you even get the trusty yep i legitimately bought the collector's edition yeah i didn't just uh get it or make it anyway uh even this show um i guess it's just a different feel is that a sticker no okay i had to check because it felt really weird and uh that's pretty odd to me so all right let's uh i don't know if the camera sees it but i think it's shifted this way more than it is this way but i'm not 100 i'd have to measure it which i'm probably not gonna do so that's the first one i like this one the most out of my order but i'm not 100 i guess until we see it also the feel i want to know what the feels like on this one and again of course we get some new tools and this one's going to be a little different so going with the uh of course mario i guess theme here um you get the mario looks like he's throwing a hat i thought he was surfing for a second but no um i tried to pick ones that weren't going to be like really really weird um and this one was as close to getting a non-weird see i didn't want to make one that you could buy for the simple reason that it felt like um i was trying to make something that didn't ex that existed and try to say that i had the zelda one or what i just decided i'm gonna make ones i don't think that ever existed and again of course we got the uh parts we need here the sticker the screen this one feels the same as this one as far as the shell goes let me see what this feels like and the back cover is off and hopefully not broken but there we go and on the inside it it must be a field they wanted you to have because it's an interesting like textured or textured feel and uh it's nice i'm just not used to it because when i open this one it's a smooth feel and this one is a textured feel so again it it isn't on the inside so it must have been a finish that they wanted on this and maybe if you can comment below maybe this uh design exists maybe this texture or texture uh look is part of one of their series i have no idea again i'm not a big nintendo boy big being a sega boy so you guys have to answer the questions for me all right so we have our two shells we have two systems we're going to use the tools they provided just to make sure get your money's worth so what do you get well not much you get one of these little wonderful things for prying plastic open so you know you don't scratch it not really remembering having to do that at all um and then you get a phillips and the tri-wing i really don't think the camera is really going to see that that's the tri-wing of course that is your phillips so i mean cheap plastic hard handles i don't want to take my kid out if i don't have to i'd like to do the repair and the refurbishment on the tools they give you because most people aren't going to even have these tools and it's nice that they put them in the only thing i know when i do stuff with these tools is i find it hurts my hand if you have to do any pressing and that kind of sucks but let's start so i'm gonna take the one i think this one here with the most damage yeah see that it is pretty pretty bad we're gonna take that one apart because definitely and this one needs a facelift and i think we'll go with what i think is my favorite cover so i'm gonna go with this unit first so we're gonna take this and put it here because it goes with that and this is going over here and i like that multi-tone you know the red and the uh white or uh kind of a off-white it's it's some white it's a white it's a white garment all right now i'm sure there's tear down videos everywhere all over the internet for this so i'm not going to get too in-depth i mean there's a screw here you take your battery door off basically you pull out your battery right and these are easily replaced i think the batteries in these proved to be pretty good so i'm not too concerned about it and then you're gonna have a screw here here here here and here now these i believe are all wise so now you put down that little phillips pop in that little y i already hate this screwdriver already but it's got a little bit of magnetism now it's up to you if you want to use the original screws if they're clean i would probably reuse them but if they're not like these are clean these look really clean actually normally if they're not i just kind of use the new ones or clean them up sometimes you get like that the gunk in there i don't even know if you can really see the screw but yeah it's a little y screw i call them the y screw anyway i don't know what you guys want to call them but that's what i call them and there we go and guys i'm going to be doing a lot more of this uh tech and rehaul stuff because it's what i really actually enjoy in life when i want to do something and i haven't found that joy in a long time so i've been kind of neglecting it i bought this over a year ago i bought this over a year ago i have a project that most of you would go oh my god and i bought it i had a year anniversary from the manufacturer just a little while ago about a month or so ago so it's like i've i've almost like i've lost the want to do it but anyway um we're back we're trying we're going to see what we can do keep it going and uh yeah some c'est la vie now i don't yeah there we go i was gonna say i don't remember this part b oh i almost forgot that screw right there and it is a y as well why i don't know why because they felt like it okay for the sake of my hands and it hurt yeah i have small hands for these i don't care what anybody says you need a proper now you can buy i think i have kits in my uh electronic toolbox that give you multi-ends or whatever for just this like sega nintendo that kind of thing and that is great and all but i don't want to dig them out and i'm sure this kit has what i'm looking for because i'm pretty sure i bought this kit based on what i'm looking for and even when it's stripped eh boom and i probably don't want to ever reuse that and now we are ready to take off this back that's it that's how easy that is to take off now you'll see stuff like this falling out of it and you're going to see stuff falling out you don't know what was inside these things so we'll just give it a goodbye well i have this open i am going to do a uh clean up on the board especially the cartridge slot and you probably won't notice but they're they're old and they get dirty and nothing like taking some alcohol and just getting it in there so anyway let's get this board out and if i'm right there's only a couple screws one here one here and one here so three screws i believe and that is it and i think they are now back to phillips so we're going to use their phillips screwdriver because i don't want to be changing bits and there we go then put them out kind of like how they came out so that you know that the screws there are for the case the screws here are for the motherboard it's just a little happiness reminder or even when you're using the new screws it tells you okay there was three in the motherboard so you're not questioning and trying to find it and this will just pop up and you'll see that you gotta be careful here because there's a ribbon cable okay so you want to unplug this ribbon cable and don't force it because if it rips it's goodbye i mean it's it's absolutely useless and where did that fall from oh it's one of the little buttons okay so as you can see here now we have the motherboard out and while it's out of course we want to clean all the buttons and everything here um i don't know if this has new pads in this kit we'll find that out but it's not a big deal if it doesn't these look pretty good but anyway we're going to clean them and we'll probably clean in here too just using rubbing alcohol here's your speaker so that'll just pop out go into the next one no biggie so i'm going to just do a blow off on this board get in everywhere you get into all your little spots because you're gonna need it so i might just spray some contact cleaner in here and uh let it dry because really this is very impressive it is very very clean so normally i take these apart and it's like oh boy and you know like there's somebody's skin or something in there you know you never know what you're gonna find but anyway um that boards out and now we have this piece here with our trusty screen and of course we want our screen because that just makes sense so we got to take out these little things here um and when you're taking out this ribbon cable again be careful it goes through this little slot right here and that slot you kind of have to tip it a little to make sure it goes in and out without putting a rip in this area here so this is something to watch for um as far as the speaker goes i think it will just pop boop it popped now the speaker if you want you can clean these contacts but i mean there's not a lot that's going to go wrong here this one i do have extras but look at how clean and how nice that is normally when i take these out they are discolored tons of dirt inside there and you can clean them if the speaker sounded good when you tried it fine clean it up but this one is spotless so i'm impressed it's almost like i was in here already no probably wasn't a very well used unit that's probably my guess oh might as well take that furry stuff in case the other one doesn't have it oh i see why because that is keeping the dust out see that that was pretty smart in nintendo on that one so it's like a speaker grill so we'll just lay that right on top of the speaker okay let's take this here apart and get this screen out i don't even need i don't think to take anything apart other than this piece here so let's see if i can now we're going to need a razor blade good old blue and just phillips going out around the outer ring here as you can see now i just kind of separated these screws again i mean no big deal it's kind of they're all pretty much the same length actually i haven't seen one that's a different length yet so it really doesn't matter um i'm pretty sure that there isn't any different length ones so nothing to really worry about this is already wanting to pop look at that so now this is where it gets a little bit more interesting there we go so remember i talked about this you don't want to force this down or anything you just kind of want to here's the problem see it could rip right here and realistically i should have i think there might be a screw for that well there it is ha i knew there was a screw because without that piece off on the other side this can oh it's actually a phillips this can actually be a uh easy easy tear and i don't want anybody tearing their stuff apart or ripping something and then having to spend extra money because they listen to me now that one is the odd one and i knew there was one i just couldn't remember where and that is your longest screw so as you can see now it just fell off out it comes okay that's how simple that is and here this one's glass that's why it's doing so well this one is glass so definitely keeping it um i don't think the new one i think i flexed it so it's not so this one is glass so that's that's really good to know so now you see that we have everything uh pulled the part well it almost looked like it was cracked there for a second i was scared but uh it's actually not um now that we have it apart we can take the old stuff now never throw out the old stuff because you never know when you're gonna find something like other than the back on this the rest of it was pretty good right so i mean the rest of it was pretty good so you could just change this cover if you wanted to right let's say you want to mix and match now's the time okay but the idea behind keeping it all is the fact that you could come across a really severely screwed up one and want to buy it but then you're like oh man i got to build a housing or buy a housing and in this case you don't because again moto master mastercraft same uh product as my toolkit because here in canada canadian tires kind of i'm gonna say awesome-ish but not amazing but this stuff i can't find anywhere without spending big money on this contact cleaner and i bought two cans from them right away because i was like oh my god they have them it's so hard to get good ones i always recommend putting something underneath here because i i know i can easily replace my black rubber once it gets bad but why if you don't have to so i'm gonna now the nice thing about this stuff is it will not hurt the board in any way but you can get it on your fingers smells really good remember the buttons let's get them all right so now that we got that done let's oh she's a dripping glass or no glass so basically we just pop that bad boy back in there pop pop this guy back on here now what we're trying to make sure of is that we don't pinch this wire or this cable because a cable is rounded on purpose to go with the hinge okay so that's kind of important that we don't uh mess that up all right so i just wanted to lay it in there see what it looked like how's that look guys i think that's quite nice i i really do like that so let's see how the end result is okay so first things first we're to take this apart and again like i said there was cardboard in there i knew that so i don't need to take any of these out i'm going to use all the new rubber just because why wouldn't i but keep your old rubber because these did not look bad at all but this is just going to give me that little extra uh nowhere feel and actually the nubs the nubs on these are actually more aggressive than on that so that's kind of interesting oh maybe that was the no that was the top okay so i'm going to use these ones anyway because it came with the kit that's the goal here so we're gonna take the fan grill shall we say our fan grill it's got a fan in it speaker grill and now the speaker will just drop in and as you can see it won't just fall out so that's kind of nice and it just makes the contact off here and if you felt like your speaker wasn't working or when you put it back together it's not you can kind of just get a little blade in there and kind of elevate those two prongs it just means they weren't touching the board right so it's just a heads up so now let's got to put this this so we're going to do a i don't want to tip too much in case those things come off again which would really really give me an upset time i don't think they will but let's be certain all right so now we are yeah don't be scared to give it a little push because it's going to need it you got to remember these aren't original shells so they will take a little bit more to put down now before i do anything i'm going to put a lot of pressure here so now we want to put the new bottom on and the new bottom already has you see they've already pretty much pre-taken care of everything so these are already the bumpers are already on there uh we just need to put this on now and away we go so now um another thing when we're putting these on do i need that off oh yeah that was stupid of me need this off so i can put the the ribbon cable through i knew i was getting a little ahead of myself you see when you put these things together so many times you tend to like forget a lot now this one's going to be a little bit tight because again it's brand new and it isn't exact so that's you know something to to to remember when you're doing this now um i guess i'll put this the screws in here to get this back together and we're going to use the new screws like i said that way i won't have it falling apart when i'm trying to do everything and that just sucks all right so let's see what we got in here okay so we have a nice red oh those are the little circles i was like what the heck is that and then what is this this is our new switch i don't need that yet and we have the nintendo logo to make everything look real because in the end of course you want to look real hey and look one of those little square things i guess it does matter i have no idea oop is it this one oh i'm grabbing the wrong screws that's why i need the all right so i'm gonna use the original screws one take another one i like to go across just to that way it's not really lifting or falling apart gives me that uh sense of happiness wow i'm not as young as i used to be that's for sure can't even get stupid thing in the hole no pun intended if you want to see a rebuild of one of those then if you're not subscribed i would suggest you do now i also try to make it as simple and as easy as possible to do these right so basically when you look at me do it there's a high chance you'll go oh wow that's so easy right and that's what i want i want you guys to say hey that's so easy now look at this just like a brand new looks like i took it apart and we're gonna put it back together so in here i won't even play around with those things yet to get this onto this so we need to put this through here and now that is there okay so just to give a idea here on what the big problem was with this hinging thing was getting these plugs here out and not so easy and then it was stupid me so they're in here like this basically if you just take a screwdriver put it in the center of it put it down on the desk and push this way out they come so i was trying everything all i was doing was butchering it they're out so now let's get it the new one back together by putting in these pins looks like they do have slots on them not sure putting them in or taking them out was easier after putting them back in i'm not so sure of okay it's in a bit so let me get the other one on and see if i can figure out a pleasant way to finish that and that is that all right so now we have our hinges on we don't play around with this too much yet now we have the hinges so that we don't have to worry about the screen falling off right now and i've had forgot about that when i was doing the teardown but i i did off camera figuring out what it was i should have just went to another youtube channel and watched it but i didn't even then i just figured it out without getting help again because i'm stubborn that way all right so ribbon cable we want to put it back in and we want to make sure that the pins the cable should only go in one way which should be like this and there's only one way to test that after and that is to make sure make sure your tabs are open and that is just to turn it on before you seal everything up to make sure you've done everything you wanted to do oh boy i always hate this part you want to talk about the hardest part of doing something like this it's here anytime you do a mod it's always it's the problem is these things are in the way right so you can't push up against it it's really annoying and that's where that problem comes in well i never had this much trouble before all right remember you don't want to pull too hard on these tabs either because you don't want to rip your cable once that's done it's done so we're back in now before i put the rest of this back together it would definitely be nice to know if this actually powers up still so we're just going to take the battery lay it in there we go so we have picture okay so we're good there all right now we don't have to worry so much we know at least the unit is working i'm gonna put the screws in and i'm gonna test the buttons that's very important so i'm gonna put the uh screws in now and test the button so i'm just gonna use the original screws again i think they were phillips okay note to self and note to everybody don't put the board back in before you put this piece back on the screw hole for that is under here so now i have to take the board out again and now i got the rhythm rhythm the rhythm cable the ribbon cable hooked up and i don't want to take it out so i got to be careful here i don't want to mess things up now when you're putting this onto make sure you don't pinch that cable because that would really not be cool and remember that longer screw that we had the only longer one that's the one that goes through here all right so now we're cutting into basically new plastic so you'll have to give it a little bit of place let's make sure all these are in place put this back on and we know the speaker worked when i had it temporarily powered too because we heard that all right so now we have this piece on so now this doesn't look horrible when i open it it's all nice and done all right so now we can put the board in so just remember that because i put the board back in and forgot about that screw and off camera i actually had the screws in for the board and then i was like oh yeah i got to put that on and then when i went to put it on i thought one of these screw holes here were for it and i was like oh darn so learned my valuables lessons camera should be able to see that see how screwed up i am now what doesn't make sense there is the fact that when i put those in it went by the groove sizes i want to scratch up the case already so that's why i only put one screw in because when you do this you want to test the buttons right away because at that point it would just be really annoying to put it all back together and go wow those buttons are stuck or they don't press or whatever the case is just no clickety click and that's what's happening right now plus they're not even shaped or shaped they're not even pointing the right way so again we pull this up getting annoyed with myself now that i know i got it right we're going to put these back on put the board back in and again remember put one screw the one in the middle because that will hold the board pretty tight so get it all nice and snug and then check your buttons again because every time i do one of these i end up having to take the board off and fixing the orientation of the buttons or they weren't pressing now they're pressing you're already oh and this is the lights did i just do that again so see board removal number two that's why i only put one screw in look over your job make sure the job is done right hopefully that is the last time now because i've taken the board out and back a few times i'm going to want to put the screw in power it up one more time make sure not only did i get the lights and everything working did i mess up the ribbon cable and that would suck but or did it just come out just enough to stop working so these are little key things that you need to be ready and aware for so we're going to take the battery so we have another problem you see something so simple can turn into numerous little tiny things and now the speaker must not be making contact do what i said about those tabs just by tipping them up a little just to make contact so you're just pulling the tabs up just a tiny bit and then again like i said every time you put a take this off and put it back on the most important thing to do is drop one screw in i'm gonna say it over and over and over test it before you put the other two in because that'll just upset you and i've upset myself many times so if i was doing a review of this screwdriver i'd say it sucks alright so now we have it back on let's hope we have sound that's all we can ask for there we go all right we got sound all right so we just you know got better so everything else now other than cosmetics is done and then we'll put the other two screws back in remember this is new plastic so the screws are going to go in uh with a little bit of effort because you're now chewing into the plastic so don't be worried about that but don't over tighten it once you get down to the bottom there and you feel that it's it's in stop because once you stretch or uh strip that area you're gonna have you know more issues so there we go now we're gonna put the the new bottom back on keep in mind uh when they ship they're already got all the new little doohickeys in there already for you okay so remember we have a test these buttons okay we have a screw here and we have our four screws here and all those screws were y screws and that be these now i still don't have a clue where that went that is still a puzzling thing for me and how important it is all right so now we have oh and the screen got nice and stiffer there we go um so now we have everything except for the battery back in the sticker on and the little knickknacks to make it look really nice so let's pop the battery back in put cover back on or not is that where the nut went that would be yeah found it so guys all that and i need to take it apart to replace that nut that was right there see it looked like it went here so i didn't really pay much attention and that is a oversight on my part a little word of advice pay attention to what you're doing i know i didn't but you also learn from your mistakes and i think they've always been in the shells that i've done and i never ever noticed them i've never taken one out that's for sure so i probably did not notice it before and now i'm upset and paying the price for it so here we go again remember how wonderful it was to put on and here i am taking it off remember that nice little plastic pry tool this is where it's good on the original one it'll fall apart pretty easily i find but on this tight new plastic you're not going to get the same experience because well it's tight and it's new so you just run it along here i don't want to scratch it so i want to use the tool just to make sure i don't make this thing ugly i took all the screws out correct i always check for that because it's being stubborn and nobody likes stubborn well that doesn't make a lot of sense now does it okay so one thing we're going to learn here is fit and finish other than like the the you know looks it looks pretty good fit and finish there's pretty nice oops turn keep screws and now i can't get it out so what i want to do then i want to take this screw here off here which is not that hard to do that fully works so this whole time it was a cheap screw not going down proper and causing grief to the point where it would strip and now i should be able to just screw this down nicely there we go all right let's put the battery back in so note do not use the original screw that came with this or uh with the uh kit put the original nintendo screw if you have it if you don't just be careful because that screw is garbage and it will strip very very easily all right so now we don't have that issue anymore the door fit and finish is kind of interesting it doesn't seem to uh maybe it's not in all the way we're gonna see it is i find it a little springy um but you can tell it's probably not original whether it says game boy or not on it even though the original one doesn't say game game boy on it so a little bit of a giveaway i i assume all right so first thing before we flip it we're going to sticker it we're going to make it look real what it's authentic guys i i never uh i never you know questioned it it's totally authentic unit and it's a zero zero one just like it's supposed to be so that is key i didn't actually buy something to make it look like it wasn't the peel off of the new and improved i don't know about improved but there we go with that let's come out i'm making mistakes non-stop see i'm showing you guys what not to do and then you'll know not to do it that is my story i'm not doing i'm doing it on purpose that's my story so it comes with three of course for the smaller holes i did not notice that until i went to put it in the hole and i was like wait a minute this ain't the right size and i thought i was gonna have to use the original ones but you don't because they actually come with the right thing so literally don't stick them down and you can slide them a little if you're gentle on your stick down and now we have those in see how this is coming together and now we're going to do the final what do you think of that guys kind of a neat two-tone the texture is interesting all right so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to get the other one done off camera and then we're going to talk about them and see what i think of these kits for the price and if you want to do something like this i'll have links below as well so let's uh get to finishing i hope you liked my b-roll on these little guys um i'm really happy with the finish like what what has whoops what has been it's hard playing with an up camera what has become of these units is actually pretty nice i am overall impressed with the fit feel and finish now that i know that it was an intentional uh fit i thought this was weak but when i pressed on an original it was the same thing so it wasn't really anything different in the plastic was one weaker than the other no um i did find that the this red one here had a better door that i guess fits proper than this one i found that it's springy on the uh sides um other than that though everything went together pretty decently well other than my own stupid mistakes of you know having to take the board out i think it ended up being six or seven times in the end but it's not at fault of the kit it's at fault of the user and uh overall i just have to say i'm uh if you're looking to modernize your a game boy advance i would recommend they are perfectly fine there's it's a great opportunity to enjoy a couple nice uh units from the past making them newish make well i guess new after you refurb them inside and understanding that you know you have a machine that you decided you wanted it to look as it does so guys thank you i know this video is very long and i just didn't want to it was almost two hours when i was doing the whole video and everything um i didn't shoot building this one but it was the same thing just a different uh shell um i learned a lot doing this video and i hope you guys have too especially when it came to the hinges as i've taken it apart before to get a screen out and a board to use on a normal advanced to do a modification i've never built this model before so i never had to take these apart so that was definitely a learning curve should have went to youtube and did what everybody else would do look it up but i'm way too stubborn for that and i like to learn the hard way so i'm hoping that my learning the hard way is so that you don't have to and i hope you enjoyed this video of these units and guys you know until next time game overokay welcome back to another episode of the last game hunter and today oh and thank you for tuning in i just want to make that clear we love you here we're going to take a look at these uh already beat up let's see the camera there yeah i see that we're going to take care of these nice old beat up butt working game boy advances and this one's not as bad but i mean it's it's still got its things um i bought these two purposely to reshell and show you guys how it's done and some special types of shells so first we'll unbox and take a look at what i bought and then we'll get into the refinishing of these bad boys okay so in this box here we'll call it box number one and this one we'll call do all right so what do we got in here so right off the bat we got some tools hey they gave us some tools and kind of hard i'm playing around with the new camera set up here and it's freaking me out uh i got a overhead system i don't think i've ever done a review on it all right let's take a look at this what we got here is the super mario 30th i guess edition or or like a uh a little you know collectible for 30 years or something like that maybe for the game boy i'm not sure i don't know how long they've been around but anyway let's uh open this all up and see everything that we get oh that feels weird that feels really really weird i'm sure they're just laid there because there's no real press to them so they probably have like a cardboard or something inside keeping them in place for looks but it really feels i'll have to see if the other one feels like it but it's kind of got this interesting finish i must say and uh this piece here of course we get the uh screws and new plugs and the cover for you know whatever you need there for it and we get a brand new screen there see it all right and then we have oh you even get the trusty yep i legitimately bought the collector's edition yeah i didn't just uh get it or make it anyway uh even this show um i guess it's just a different feel is that a sticker no okay i had to check because it felt really weird and uh that's pretty odd to me so all right let's uh i don't know if the camera sees it but i think it's shifted this way more than it is this way but i'm not 100 i'd have to measure it which i'm probably not gonna do so that's the first one i like this one the most out of my order but i'm not 100 i guess until we see it also the feel i want to know what the feels like on this one and again of course we get some new tools and this one's going to be a little different so going with the uh of course mario i guess theme here um you get the mario looks like he's throwing a hat i thought he was surfing for a second but no um i tried to pick ones that weren't going to be like really really weird um and this one was as close to getting a non-weird see i didn't want to make one that you could buy for the simple reason that it felt like um i was trying to make something that didn't ex that existed and try to say that i had the zelda one or what i just decided i'm gonna make ones i don't think that ever existed and again of course we got the uh parts we need here the sticker the screen this one feels the same as this one as far as the shell goes let me see what this feels like and the back cover is off and hopefully not broken but there we go and on the inside it it must be a field they wanted you to have because it's an interesting like textured or textured feel and uh it's nice i'm just not used to it because when i open this one it's a smooth feel and this one is a textured feel so again it it isn't on the inside so it must have been a finish that they wanted on this and maybe if you can comment below maybe this uh design exists maybe this texture or texture uh look is part of one of their series i have no idea again i'm not a big nintendo boy big being a sega boy so you guys have to answer the questions for me all right so we have our two shells we have two systems we're going to use the tools they provided just to make sure get your money's worth so what do you get well not much you get one of these little wonderful things for prying plastic open so you know you don't scratch it not really remembering having to do that at all um and then you get a phillips and the tri-wing i really don't think the camera is really going to see that that's the tri-wing of course that is your phillips so i mean cheap plastic hard handles i don't want to take my kid out if i don't have to i'd like to do the repair and the refurbishment on the tools they give you because most people aren't going to even have these tools and it's nice that they put them in the only thing i know when i do stuff with these tools is i find it hurts my hand if you have to do any pressing and that kind of sucks but let's start so i'm gonna take the one i think this one here with the most damage yeah see that it is pretty pretty bad we're gonna take that one apart because definitely and this one needs a facelift and i think we'll go with what i think is my favorite cover so i'm gonna go with this unit first so we're gonna take this and put it here because it goes with that and this is going over here and i like that multi-tone you know the red and the uh white or uh kind of a off-white it's it's some white it's a white it's a white garment all right now i'm sure there's tear down videos everywhere all over the internet for this so i'm not going to get too in-depth i mean there's a screw here you take your battery door off basically you pull out your battery right and these are easily replaced i think the batteries in these proved to be pretty good so i'm not too concerned about it and then you're gonna have a screw here here here here and here now these i believe are all wise so now you put down that little phillips pop in that little y i already hate this screwdriver already but it's got a little bit of magnetism now it's up to you if you want to use the original screws if they're clean i would probably reuse them but if they're not like these are clean these look really clean actually normally if they're not i just kind of use the new ones or clean them up sometimes you get like that the gunk in there i don't even know if you can really see the screw but yeah it's a little y screw i call them the y screw anyway i don't know what you guys want to call them but that's what i call them and there we go and guys i'm going to be doing a lot more of this uh tech and rehaul stuff because it's what i really actually enjoy in life when i want to do something and i haven't found that joy in a long time so i've been kind of neglecting it i bought this over a year ago i bought this over a year ago i have a project that most of you would go oh my god and i bought it i had a year anniversary from the manufacturer just a little while ago about a month or so ago so it's like i've i've almost like i've lost the want to do it but anyway um we're back we're trying we're going to see what we can do keep it going and uh yeah some c'est la vie now i don't yeah there we go i was gonna say i don't remember this part b oh i almost forgot that screw right there and it is a y as well why i don't know why because they felt like it okay for the sake of my hands and it hurt yeah i have small hands for these i don't care what anybody says you need a proper now you can buy i think i have kits in my uh electronic toolbox that give you multi-ends or whatever for just this like sega nintendo that kind of thing and that is great and all but i don't want to dig them out and i'm sure this kit has what i'm looking for because i'm pretty sure i bought this kit based on what i'm looking for and even when it's stripped eh boom and i probably don't want to ever reuse that and now we are ready to take off this back that's it that's how easy that is to take off now you'll see stuff like this falling out of it and you're going to see stuff falling out you don't know what was inside these things so we'll just give it a goodbye well i have this open i am going to do a uh clean up on the board especially the cartridge slot and you probably won't notice but they're they're old and they get dirty and nothing like taking some alcohol and just getting it in there so anyway let's get this board out and if i'm right there's only a couple screws one here one here and one here so three screws i believe and that is it and i think they are now back to phillips so we're going to use their phillips screwdriver because i don't want to be changing bits and there we go then put them out kind of like how they came out so that you know that the screws there are for the case the screws here are for the motherboard it's just a little happiness reminder or even when you're using the new screws it tells you okay there was three in the motherboard so you're not questioning and trying to find it and this will just pop up and you'll see that you gotta be careful here because there's a ribbon cable okay so you want to unplug this ribbon cable and don't force it because if it rips it's goodbye i mean it's it's absolutely useless and where did that fall from oh it's one of the little buttons okay so as you can see here now we have the motherboard out and while it's out of course we want to clean all the buttons and everything here um i don't know if this has new pads in this kit we'll find that out but it's not a big deal if it doesn't these look pretty good but anyway we're going to clean them and we'll probably clean in here too just using rubbing alcohol here's your speaker so that'll just pop out go into the next one no biggie so i'm going to just do a blow off on this board get in everywhere you get into all your little spots because you're gonna need it so i might just spray some contact cleaner in here and uh let it dry because really this is very impressive it is very very clean so normally i take these apart and it's like oh boy and you know like there's somebody's skin or something in there you know you never know what you're gonna find but anyway um that boards out and now we have this piece here with our trusty screen and of course we want our screen because that just makes sense so we got to take out these little things here um and when you're taking out this ribbon cable again be careful it goes through this little slot right here and that slot you kind of have to tip it a little to make sure it goes in and out without putting a rip in this area here so this is something to watch for um as far as the speaker goes i think it will just pop boop it popped now the speaker if you want you can clean these contacts but i mean there's not a lot that's going to go wrong here this one i do have extras but look at how clean and how nice that is normally when i take these out they are discolored tons of dirt inside there and you can clean them if the speaker sounded good when you tried it fine clean it up but this one is spotless so i'm impressed it's almost like i was in here already no probably wasn't a very well used unit that's probably my guess oh might as well take that furry stuff in case the other one doesn't have it oh i see why because that is keeping the dust out see that that was pretty smart in nintendo on that one so it's like a speaker grill so we'll just lay that right on top of the speaker okay let's take this here apart and get this screen out i don't even need i don't think to take anything apart other than this piece here so let's see if i can now we're going to need a razor blade good old blue and just phillips going out around the outer ring here as you can see now i just kind of separated these screws again i mean no big deal it's kind of they're all pretty much the same length actually i haven't seen one that's a different length yet so it really doesn't matter um i'm pretty sure that there isn't any different length ones so nothing to really worry about this is already wanting to pop look at that so now this is where it gets a little bit more interesting there we go so remember i talked about this you don't want to force this down or anything you just kind of want to here's the problem see it could rip right here and realistically i should have i think there might be a screw for that well there it is ha i knew there was a screw because without that piece off on the other side this can oh it's actually a phillips this can actually be a uh easy easy tear and i don't want anybody tearing their stuff apart or ripping something and then having to spend extra money because they listen to me now that one is the odd one and i knew there was one i just couldn't remember where and that is your longest screw so as you can see now it just fell off out it comes okay that's how simple that is and here this one's glass that's why it's doing so well this one is glass so definitely keeping it um i don't think the new one i think i flexed it so it's not so this one is glass so that's that's really good to know so now you see that we have everything uh pulled the part well it almost looked like it was cracked there for a second i was scared but uh it's actually not um now that we have it apart we can take the old stuff now never throw out the old stuff because you never know when you're gonna find something like other than the back on this the rest of it was pretty good right so i mean the rest of it was pretty good so you could just change this cover if you wanted to right let's say you want to mix and match now's the time okay but the idea behind keeping it all is the fact that you could come across a really severely screwed up one and want to buy it but then you're like oh man i got to build a housing or buy a housing and in this case you don't because again moto master mastercraft same uh product as my toolkit because here in canada canadian tires kind of i'm gonna say awesome-ish but not amazing but this stuff i can't find anywhere without spending big money on this contact cleaner and i bought two cans from them right away because i was like oh my god they have them it's so hard to get good ones i always recommend putting something underneath here because i i know i can easily replace my black rubber once it gets bad but why if you don't have to so i'm gonna now the nice thing about this stuff is it will not hurt the board in any way but you can get it on your fingers smells really good remember the buttons let's get them all right so now that we got that done let's oh she's a dripping glass or no glass so basically we just pop that bad boy back in there pop pop this guy back on here now what we're trying to make sure of is that we don't pinch this wire or this cable because a cable is rounded on purpose to go with the hinge okay so that's kind of important that we don't uh mess that up all right so i just wanted to lay it in there see what it looked like how's that look guys i think that's quite nice i i really do like that so let's see how the end result is okay so first things first we're to take this apart and again like i said there was cardboard in there i knew that so i don't need to take any of these out i'm going to use all the new rubber just because why wouldn't i but keep your old rubber because these did not look bad at all but this is just going to give me that little extra uh nowhere feel and actually the nubs the nubs on these are actually more aggressive than on that so that's kind of interesting oh maybe that was the no that was the top okay so i'm going to use these ones anyway because it came with the kit that's the goal here so we're gonna take the fan grill shall we say our fan grill it's got a fan in it speaker grill and now the speaker will just drop in and as you can see it won't just fall out so that's kind of nice and it just makes the contact off here and if you felt like your speaker wasn't working or when you put it back together it's not you can kind of just get a little blade in there and kind of elevate those two prongs it just means they weren't touching the board right so it's just a heads up so now let's got to put this this so we're going to do a i don't want to tip too much in case those things come off again which would really really give me an upset time i don't think they will but let's be certain all right so now we are yeah don't be scared to give it a little push because it's going to need it you got to remember these aren't original shells so they will take a little bit more to put down now before i do anything i'm going to put a lot of pressure here so now we want to put the new bottom on and the new bottom already has you see they've already pretty much pre-taken care of everything so these are already the bumpers are already on there uh we just need to put this on now and away we go so now um another thing when we're putting these on do i need that off oh yeah that was stupid of me need this off so i can put the the ribbon cable through i knew i was getting a little ahead of myself you see when you put these things together so many times you tend to like forget a lot now this one's going to be a little bit tight because again it's brand new and it isn't exact so that's you know something to to to remember when you're doing this now um i guess i'll put this the screws in here to get this back together and we're going to use the new screws like i said that way i won't have it falling apart when i'm trying to do everything and that just sucks all right so let's see what we got in here okay so we have a nice red oh those are the little circles i was like what the heck is that and then what is this this is our new switch i don't need that yet and we have the nintendo logo to make everything look real because in the end of course you want to look real hey and look one of those little square things i guess it does matter i have no idea oop is it this one oh i'm grabbing the wrong screws that's why i need the all right so i'm gonna use the original screws one take another one i like to go across just to that way it's not really lifting or falling apart gives me that uh sense of happiness wow i'm not as young as i used to be that's for sure can't even get stupid thing in the hole no pun intended if you want to see a rebuild of one of those then if you're not subscribed i would suggest you do now i also try to make it as simple and as easy as possible to do these right so basically when you look at me do it there's a high chance you'll go oh wow that's so easy right and that's what i want i want you guys to say hey that's so easy now look at this just like a brand new looks like i took it apart and we're gonna put it back together so in here i won't even play around with those things yet to get this onto this so we need to put this through here and now that is there okay so just to give a idea here on what the big problem was with this hinging thing was getting these plugs here out and not so easy and then it was stupid me so they're in here like this basically if you just take a screwdriver put it in the center of it put it down on the desk and push this way out they come so i was trying everything all i was doing was butchering it they're out so now let's get it the new one back together by putting in these pins looks like they do have slots on them not sure putting them in or taking them out was easier after putting them back in i'm not so sure of okay it's in a bit so let me get the other one on and see if i can figure out a pleasant way to finish that and that is that all right so now we have our hinges on we don't play around with this too much yet now we have the hinges so that we don't have to worry about the screen falling off right now and i've had forgot about that when i was doing the teardown but i i did off camera figuring out what it was i should have just went to another youtube channel and watched it but i didn't even then i just figured it out without getting help again because i'm stubborn that way all right so ribbon cable we want to put it back in and we want to make sure that the pins the cable should only go in one way which should be like this and there's only one way to test that after and that is to make sure make sure your tabs are open and that is just to turn it on before you seal everything up to make sure you've done everything you wanted to do oh boy i always hate this part you want to talk about the hardest part of doing something like this it's here anytime you do a mod it's always it's the problem is these things are in the way right so you can't push up against it it's really annoying and that's where that problem comes in well i never had this much trouble before all right remember you don't want to pull too hard on these tabs either because you don't want to rip your cable once that's done it's done so we're back in now before i put the rest of this back together it would definitely be nice to know if this actually powers up still so we're just going to take the battery lay it in there we go so we have picture okay so we're good there all right now we don't have to worry so much we know at least the unit is working i'm gonna put the screws in and i'm gonna test the buttons that's very important so i'm gonna put the uh screws in now and test the button so i'm just gonna use the original screws again i think they were phillips okay note to self and note to everybody don't put the board back in before you put this piece back on the screw hole for that is under here so now i have to take the board out again and now i got the rhythm rhythm the rhythm cable the ribbon cable hooked up and i don't want to take it out so i got to be careful here i don't want to mess things up now when you're putting this onto make sure you don't pinch that cable because that would really not be cool and remember that longer screw that we had the only longer one that's the one that goes through here all right so now we're cutting into basically new plastic so you'll have to give it a little bit of place let's make sure all these are in place put this back on and we know the speaker worked when i had it temporarily powered too because we heard that all right so now we have this piece on so now this doesn't look horrible when i open it it's all nice and done all right so now we can put the board in so just remember that because i put the board back in and forgot about that screw and off camera i actually had the screws in for the board and then i was like oh yeah i got to put that on and then when i went to put it on i thought one of these screw holes here were for it and i was like oh darn so learned my valuables lessons camera should be able to see that see how screwed up i am now what doesn't make sense there is the fact that when i put those in it went by the groove sizes i want to scratch up the case already so that's why i only put one screw in because when you do this you want to test the buttons right away because at that point it would just be really annoying to put it all back together and go wow those buttons are stuck or they don't press or whatever the case is just no clickety click and that's what's happening right now plus they're not even shaped or shaped they're not even pointing the right way so again we pull this up getting annoyed with myself now that i know i got it right we're going to put these back on put the board back in and again remember put one screw the one in the middle because that will hold the board pretty tight so get it all nice and snug and then check your buttons again because every time i do one of these i end up having to take the board off and fixing the orientation of the buttons or they weren't pressing now they're pressing you're already oh and this is the lights did i just do that again so see board removal number two that's why i only put one screw in look over your job make sure the job is done right hopefully that is the last time now because i've taken the board out and back a few times i'm going to want to put the screw in power it up one more time make sure not only did i get the lights and everything working did i mess up the ribbon cable and that would suck but or did it just come out just enough to stop working so these are little key things that you need to be ready and aware for so we're going to take the battery so we have another problem you see something so simple can turn into numerous little tiny things and now the speaker must not be making contact do what i said about those tabs just by tipping them up a little just to make contact so you're just pulling the tabs up just a tiny bit and then again like i said every time you put a take this off and put it back on the most important thing to do is drop one screw in i'm gonna say it over and over and over test it before you put the other two in because that'll just upset you and i've upset myself many times so if i was doing a review of this screwdriver i'd say it sucks alright so now we have it back on let's hope we have sound that's all we can ask for there we go all right we got sound all right so we just you know got better so everything else now other than cosmetics is done and then we'll put the other two screws back in remember this is new plastic so the screws are going to go in uh with a little bit of effort because you're now chewing into the plastic so don't be worried about that but don't over tighten it once you get down to the bottom there and you feel that it's it's in stop because once you stretch or uh strip that area you're gonna have you know more issues so there we go now we're gonna put the the new bottom back on keep in mind uh when they ship they're already got all the new little doohickeys in there already for you okay so remember we have a test these buttons okay we have a screw here and we have our four screws here and all those screws were y screws and that be these now i still don't have a clue where that went that is still a puzzling thing for me and how important it is all right so now we have oh and the screen got nice and stiffer there we go um so now we have everything except for the battery back in the sticker on and the little knickknacks to make it look really nice so let's pop the battery back in put cover back on or not is that where the nut went that would be yeah found it so guys all that and i need to take it apart to replace that nut that was right there see it looked like it went here so i didn't really pay much attention and that is a oversight on my part a little word of advice pay attention to what you're doing i know i didn't but you also learn from your mistakes and i think they've always been in the shells that i've done and i never ever noticed them i've never taken one out that's for sure so i probably did not notice it before and now i'm upset and paying the price for it so here we go again remember how wonderful it was to put on and here i am taking it off remember that nice little plastic pry tool this is where it's good on the original one it'll fall apart pretty easily i find but on this tight new plastic you're not going to get the same experience because well it's tight and it's new so you just run it along here i don't want to scratch it so i want to use the tool just to make sure i don't make this thing ugly i took all the screws out correct i always check for that because it's being stubborn and nobody likes stubborn well that doesn't make a lot of sense now does it okay so one thing we're going to learn here is fit and finish other than like the the you know looks it looks pretty good fit and finish there's pretty nice oops turn keep screws and now i can't get it out so what i want to do then i want to take this screw here off here which is not that hard to do that fully works so this whole time it was a cheap screw not going down proper and causing grief to the point where it would strip and now i should be able to just screw this down nicely there we go all right let's put the battery back in so note do not use the original screw that came with this or uh with the uh kit put the original nintendo screw if you have it if you don't just be careful because that screw is garbage and it will strip very very easily all right so now we don't have that issue anymore the door fit and finish is kind of interesting it doesn't seem to uh maybe it's not in all the way we're gonna see it is i find it a little springy um but you can tell it's probably not original whether it says game boy or not on it even though the original one doesn't say game game boy on it so a little bit of a giveaway i i assume all right so first thing before we flip it we're going to sticker it we're going to make it look real what it's authentic guys i i never uh i never you know questioned it it's totally authentic unit and it's a zero zero one just like it's supposed to be so that is key i didn't actually buy something to make it look like it wasn't the peel off of the new and improved i don't know about improved but there we go with that let's come out i'm making mistakes non-stop see i'm showing you guys what not to do and then you'll know not to do it that is my story i'm not doing i'm doing it on purpose that's my story so it comes with three of course for the smaller holes i did not notice that until i went to put it in the hole and i was like wait a minute this ain't the right size and i thought i was gonna have to use the original ones but you don't because they actually come with the right thing so literally don't stick them down and you can slide them a little if you're gentle on your stick down and now we have those in see how this is coming together and now we're going to do the final what do you think of that guys kind of a neat two-tone the texture is interesting all right so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to get the other one done off camera and then we're going to talk about them and see what i think of these kits for the price and if you want to do something like this i'll have links below as well so let's uh get to finishing i hope you liked my b-roll on these little guys um i'm really happy with the finish like what what has whoops what has been it's hard playing with an up camera what has become of these units is actually pretty nice i am overall impressed with the fit feel and finish now that i know that it was an intentional uh fit i thought this was weak but when i pressed on an original it was the same thing so it wasn't really anything different in the plastic was one weaker than the other no um i did find that the this red one here had a better door that i guess fits proper than this one i found that it's springy on the uh sides um other than that though everything went together pretty decently well other than my own stupid mistakes of you know having to take the board out i think it ended up being six or seven times in the end but it's not at fault of the kit it's at fault of the user and uh overall i just have to say i'm uh if you're looking to modernize your a game boy advance i would recommend they are perfectly fine there's it's a great opportunity to enjoy a couple nice uh units from the past making them newish make well i guess new after you refurb them inside and understanding that you know you have a machine that you decided you wanted it to look as it does so guys thank you i know this video is very long and i just didn't want to it was almost two hours when i was doing the whole video and everything um i didn't shoot building this one but it was the same thing just a different uh shell um i learned a lot doing this video and i hope you guys have too especially when it came to the hinges as i've taken it apart before to get a screen out and a board to use on a normal advanced to do a modification i've never built this model before so i never had to take these apart so that was definitely a learning curve should have went to youtube and did what everybody else would do look it up but i'm way too stubborn for that and i like to learn the hard way so i'm hoping that my learning the hard way is so that you don't have to and i hope you enjoyed this video of these units and guys you know until next time game over