Surprisingly, my replacement GBC, and GBA SP speakers, butttons were just delivered. Currently, The speaker to the GBA does not work, and despite the headphone jack providing audio. Along with the replacement parts, I also ordered a tool kit to open these devices and the DS Lite. Time to open up the GBA and see what we've got.
I currently bought this GBC of a goodwill auctions along with a DS Lite. The GBC is in much better condition, only having the issues of a broken speaker and missing battery cover. My brief soldering kits experience helped me feel at ease doing this breakfix.

Recently, I've been getting into retro games. More specifically retro handhelds: GBC, GBA, GBA SP, PSP. Nostalga hit me hard as a video regarding modding the SP with upgraded screens and metal shells popped up in my youtube recommendations. I had to have one. With the goal of modding/repairing retro handhelds, I picked up soldering tools and started to practice after watching some youtube videos on beginner kits.

Browsed Amazon for an easy enough beginner kit(non-affliate link) and found this fm radio which had both THT and SMD soldering practice.

The toughest part was definitely the Surface Mount soldering for the memory chip. I definitely had some rough techiques as apparent from the image below. Burnt solder/joints, no pre-tinning nor flux on the SMD pads, etc. I expect future jobs to be a bit cleaner.




My novice work was at fault for the radio not working at first. I did not make good contacts on the SMD pads to the chip. I went back over them with solder and a magnifying glass to ensure all 16 contacts were taken care of. Looking back on it, I used way too much solder for this contact points, but luckily no shorts or issues arose the next time I turned the device on.

The finished result

It was a fun experience, and I ordered another small kit to continue practicing. This one board will be a clock. I should have the IPS PSP screen here in a few days so once that comes in, I'll start getting that installed with the quickness. I plan on documenting better as well so I can write better blog posts and updates..

Test post! Thinking about posting retro gaming or tech stuff here starting with the documentation of modding various gaming handhelds I received recently.