Tag: magnifier

What the listing stated:

Doesn’t light up when batteries inserted

EBay

Straight to the point. I think it doesn’t work. 🤷‍♂️

Ive got a Game boy, I love it. However the biggest issue has always been as soon as it goes dark you’re stuffed. As the screen was never back lit you either had to tape a torch to your head or sit under a bright light. The Nintendo Light Boy went a little way to eliminating the need for the torch by incorporating a light and a magnifier within a unit that connected to the console.

This one doesn’t work though, which is good for this blog. I paid a good price of £14:95GBP considering original ones like this are selling between £40-£90GBP. There are cheaper alternatives, but hey, why?

Shouldn’t be the hardest fix I’ve ever attempted, but it will be a great addition to my Game Boy collection.

Assessment:

The unit has arrived and is in a very good cosmetic condition with only a few slight scuffs and marks that should polish out. Two AA batteries have been put in and switched on and true to the description in the sale, it doesn’t illuminate. Glass lens is in good condition and the screen folds as it should.

Repair:

This is a really simple circuit to be honest. Two batteries, two lights and a switch. That’s about it. The screen pivots and on here there are two teeth that make a contact with two small plates on the main unit when the screen is at 90 degrees to the console. When the switch is on, the lights should illuminate at this angle, and when closed contact will be lost and the lights extinguish.

When I put batteries in there was a very dim intermittent flicker, aha I thought, dirty contacts and they sure were.

I cleaned the switch and the contacts using some IPA and removed a fair amount of old dirt from the contacts. The switch was operated 30 or 40 times to really get to anything that was deep in the switch, and this worked.

Batteries back in and unit at the correct angle, switch to the on position, and hey presto we have a constant uninterrupted supply of light.

The little marks and scuffs on the shell were all removed with a little cleaning solution. This item is now in a perfect state of repair and looking right handsome!

Result:

This is undoubtedly the easiest repair I have had yet but I’m not complaining. It always amazes me about the sellers on these platforms. I purchased this as spares and repairs damaged, when there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, well at least it only required a tiny bit of maintenance. They could have done this themselves and easily have charged a price at least three times what I paid for this unit. Fools 😂

Anyway their loss is my gain as they say, I now have a perfectly good item in perfect working order and now looking as good as new. And all it needed was a clean and some TLC.

Sometimes it all goes so well. Today is one of those days.

Thanks for passing by. It is always most appreciated.