by Chu Moy

The Nintendo Game Boy Advance is an excellent portable gaming console, whose major flaw is a reflective LCD display that works best in bright sunlight. Under normal room lighting, the GBA screen can appear dim and washed out, depending on the game's color palette. For improved screen visibility indoors or late at night, I generally use a Pelican Light Shield, which I modified by replacing the incandescent bulb with a bright white LED (full instructions for the excellent Light Shield mod can be found at gbalight.com). The Light Shield has been my preferred lighting accessory for the GBA.

Then I purchased a copy of Tetris Worlds. Although TW plays on the spacious GBA screen, the size of the Tetriminos and the Tetrimino matrix is not much larger than that on the Game Boy Color version! I had to strain my eyes to see the tiny blocks. While the modded Light Shield was fine for illuminating the screen, good lighting alone did not compensate for the miniscule Tetriminos.

A few months ago, I purchased a Light Boy Advance screen magnifier/light for the GBA. I did not use it much, because none of the games I owned back then required magnification (1.2x). The Light Boy also had incandescent bulbs, which cast an unpleasant yellowish glow onto the screen. Now, faced with the problem of the tiny Tetriminos, I took out the Light Boy and decided to replace the incandescent bulbs with white LEDs to improve the quality of the illumination. (A secondary benefit of LEDs is that they have very long lifetimes compared to incandescents - on the order of years.)

The Light Boy Advance is Nintendo's official licensed light/magnifier accessory for the GBA and is the only GBA magnifier I am aware of that has gotten very good reviews. As it retails for $30-$40 in the US, I ordered a pair of Light Boy clones for about $9 each from a company called Level Six. There are many sources on the web for Light Boy clones. I recommend getting at least 2 Light Boys for experimentation. Some of the parts on the Light Boy are fragile. The second unit could be kept as a source of replacement parts.

These clones appear to be virtually identical to the Nintendo product, but there are differences in the quality of the magnifying lens. Although none of the Light Boys claim to have superior optical lenses, the low quality ones exhibit more glare and distortion than the others. If you really need a magnifier, I recommend first trying the official Nintendo Light Boy, which I assume has a good magnifying lens. The clones are a hit-and-miss proposition. Sometimes they have good magnifiers; sometimes they don't. Level Six used to sell a Light Boy with a good magnifier, but they have switched to another brand ("MW"), which has an inferior magnifier. For more information about evaluating the Light Boy magnifying lens (with pictures), see the addendum page.

Here are the steps for modifying the Light Boy to use white LEDs:

1. Carefully detach the flip-open cover containing the lightbulbs from the Light Boy base by popping it off the hinges.



2. Remove the orange-colored top panel of the cover by using the tip of a small flat-head screwdriver to push back the tabs underneath the cover that secure the panel to the cover.

3. Pull out the circuit board and remove the lightbulbs from the board by desoldering their leads. After taking out the bulbs, make sure that there is no solder left clogging the holes. Desolder braid is the easiest way to do this.



4. Select the LEDs: I used 5mm white LEDs from Radio Shack (RS 276-320), which are highly recommended at gbalight.com. These are expensive (about $5.00 US each), but they are true white, very bright and have a wide dispersion angle (3.6V forward voltage, 1100 mcd @ 20mA, 100 degree viewing angle). gbalight.com tested several brands of white LEDs. The Radio Shack model continued to be the best.

5. Identify the polarity of the LED: There are two ways to identify the polarity of an LED. Around the base of the LED, there should be one edge that is flat (it may be hard to see since the LED enclosure is clear plastic). The lead next to this flat edge is the (-) lead. Another polarity indicator is that the longer lead is usually the (+) lead.

6. Assign an LED to each of the light wells. On each end of the circuit board, there will be polarity marks for the mounting holes. Insert the LED leads into the circuit board, taking care to observe the LED polarity. Turn on the power to confirm that the LED will light. If it doesn't light, try wiggling the LED in place to establish connectivity. If it still doesn't light, reverse the LED connections.

Bend the leads at the base of the LED so that the top of the LED faces in the direction of the light lens. Then bend the leads again at 90 degrees to form a "U" at the point where the leads will be inserted into the circuit board. Do NOT solder the LED to the circuit board yet. Repeat this step for the other LED.



7. The light wells are protected with a clear plastic lens. Because the LEDs are too large to fit inside the light wells, they must protrude through the lenses. At the center of the larger side of each lens, make an oval-shaped hole. The width of the hole should be about the same as the diameter of an LED. The height of the hole should be taller than the diameter of an LED (almost the full height of the lens), so that there is enough room for the LED to be angled forward towards the GBA screen. Drill a small pilot hole first to prevent the plastic from cracking. Enlarge the hole with larger drill bits and shape the hole into an oval with a small needle file or reamer.



8. Slide the lenses back into the cover and install the LED assembly so that the LEDs fit into the lens holes. Twist the LEDs in their mounting holes so that they will shine as much light as possible onto the GBA screen when the cover stands perpendicular to the GBA (see picture). It may help to bend the LEDs at an extreme angle first before mounting them in the lenses to ensure that they will hold their angle when mounted. Once this fitting process is finished, solder the LEDs to the circuit board.

9. Put the top panel back onto the cover, making sure that the plastic tabs on the panel snap into the mounting holes in the cover. Re-attach the cover to the Light Boy base.



10. The LEDs are so bright that they can create "hotspots" on the GBA screen. To reduce the intensity of the hotspots and the glare, cover each LED with a double layer of frosted transparent tape. The width of the tape should be about the same as the diameter of the LEDs. If the LED hotspots are still too bright, add another layer of tape, but too many layers will dim the LEDs.



For a neater-looking alternative to frosted tape, a LED diffusion filter can be made from a section of a semi-transparent drinking straw. The plastic must be semi-transparent, not clear. First, cut a 1" tube from a 1/4" diameter straw. Cut a 3/8" wide flap from the top half of the tube. Fold the flap into the tube to make a cap. If the flap deforms the tube excessively, reduce the width of the flap. Trim the height of the cap to about 1/4". Put a tiny piece of double-sided tape into the cap and insert the cap over the LED. Again, if the LEDs are still too bright, cover each of them with a small stip of frosted transparent tape before installing the diffusion filters.

The modded Light Boy is a very worthwhile GBA accessory at a total cost of about $20 US (with the Radio Shack LEDs and Light Boy clone). The brighter, white light from the LEDs is a revelation compared to the original, queasy incandescent light - as though a veil had been lifted from the GBA screen. Without the magnifier, the modded Light Boy illuminates the GBA screen as well as the modded Light Shield, if not better because the Light Boy has two LEDs. For example, the Tetris World Main Menu screen is normally very dark and barely legible on the original Light Boy. With the modded Light Boy, the screen is clear and detailed. The picture above shows the Main Menu as seen with the modded Light Boy: without magnifier and with magnifier.

On the TW Game Screen, the illumination works well with the magnifier, although the glare is more prominent due to the brightness and directionality of the LEDs. As seen in the above picture, the reflections from magnifier can cause multiple ghost images of the LEDs to appear on the GBA screen. These reflections were also visible with original Light Boy. In my opinion, it is an acceptable tradeoff given the increased clarity of the the screen. The cover can be adjusted to minimize the glare or add another layer of tape to the LEDs for more diffusion. It might help to cover the magnifier or GBA screen with an anti-glare sheet sold for PDAs. Best of all, the Tetriminos are very easy to see, and I enjoy playing TW much more. The picture above shows the TW game screen as seen with the modded Light Boy: without magnifier and with magnifier.

I highly recommend this Light Boy mod for GBA owners who need a screen magnifier. Having tried several types of magnifiers with the Game Boy Color, I think the modified Light Boy is the best among them. Those who don't need a magnifier are better off with a modified Light Shield, which offers better protection for the GBA screen when the lid is down. The modified Light Boy makes the GBA a real joy to use, even with tiny Tetriminos falling in the dark.

For the latest updates, see the Project Addendum.

c. 2001, Chu Moy.
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