Light has always been a key part of the classic Game Boy experience. Some of us have fond memories of sitting in the back seat of a car at night, pausing and unpausing the game, because the overhead street light briefly provides enough light to see the unlit display. Nowadays, the availability of third-party IPS displays for these classic handheld devices largely eliminates this problem, but as you might expect, the increased power requirements of more modern screens reduce system runtimes.
As part of energy production research, [Houston Museum of Natural Science] Set out to see if they can improve the situation by adding solar panels to the back of the Game Boy Pocket It has been modified with an IPS display. The pocket version of the Game Boy was chosen because it has a beautiful flat back that can be easily connected to solar panels. In fact, the panel size of this mod is very good, and it seems that this device is almost like that.
In the video below, you can see that the modification started by cutting off most of the rear panel of the Game Boy and installing a 1000 mAh LiPo battery. Then use super glue to fix the solar panel on the back. The diode is soldered on the solar cell and then connected to the charge controller with USB-C input. The placement of the charge controller turned out to be trickier than expected, but with a little hot glue, it worked very well. In general, this is a simple module, but a brilliant idea.
This is not the first solar-powered handheld gaming system we have seen, but it is great to see this idea being revisited and expanded, especially in terms of ergonomics. In addition, we like the incredible narrative details given when this hack is slowly taking shape. Video after the break.
thanks [Johnny] Send this!