Sad day. AGS-101 hinge housing crumbled. : ( Now what?

[Hanafuda]

Edit: this story has a happy ending. Link to repair photos down the page.

So my charcoal black AGS-101 that I bought new many years ago just disintegrated. Or at least, the shell around the hinge on the d-pad side did. Just crumbled. Tragic shit. I guess the plastic had gotten brittle? I had it stored away for a few years and recently got back into using it. Guess I should've been treating it like an antique.

Now what? Find an old SP with a broken screen or something, for donor shell parts? Go IPS? Or "consolize" it?

 

[SylverReZ]

So my charcoal black AGS-101 that I bought new many years ago just disintegrated. Or at least, the shell around the hinge on the d-pad side did. Just crumbled. Tragic shit. I guess the plastic had gotten brittle? I had it stored away for a few years and recently got back into using it. Guess I should've been treating it like an antique.

Now what? Find an old SP with a broken screen or something, for donor shell parts? Go IPS? Or "consolize" it?

View attachment 342741

Get a brand new shell and mod it to the brim.

 

[Hanafuda]

Get a brand new shell and mod it to the brim.

I know I would have to use a new shell if I wanted to install an IPS screen. Not much else I'd want to do with it though ... new buttons to match the new shell maybe. Depends. But I have doubts about the quality of any 3rd party replacement stuff. Funnyplaying has a good rep but afaik they're not doing SP shells.

 

[SylverReZ]

I know I would have to use a new shell if I wanted to install an IPS screen. Not much else I'd want to do with it though ... new buttons to match the new shell maybe. Depends. But I have doubts about the quality of any 3rd party replacement stuff. Funnyplaying has a good rep but afaik they're not doing SP shells.

I need to sort out my AGS-001 also. Can go with a new shell and IPS screen.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

Now what? Find an old SP with a broken screen or something, for donor shell parts? Go IPS? Or "consolize" it?

you should do neither of those. Get a brand new shell from AliExpress or whatever other store you like. It is cheaper and prettier than scavenge for genuine parts.

 

[Hanafuda]

you should do neither of those. Get a brand new shell from AliExpress or whatever other store you like. It is cheaper and prettier than scavenge for genuine parts.

View attachment 342743

Yeah that was assumed in the "go IPS" option. If I'm going to mod it as drastically as one of those see-through shells, might as well go all-in.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

Yeah that was assumed in the "go IPS" option. If I'm going to mod it as drastically as one of those see-through shells, might as well go all-in.

there are shells for the OG screens and for IPS ones. As your unity is a AGS-101, if screen is fina there is no reason to do the IPS mod.

Also, I'm not sure, but I believe that the OG screen on the AGS-101 is more valuable than a brand new IPS, so treasure it maybe?

 

[Hanafuda]

there are shells for the OG screens and for IPS ones. As your unity is a AGS-101, if screen is fina there is no reason to do the IPS mod.

Also, I'm not sure, but I believe that the OG screen on the AGS-101 is more valuable than a brand new IPS, so treasure it maybe?

Good point thank you. I'm not going to rush into this. Plenty of other ways to play GBA in my house so I'm gonna think on this first.

Post automatically merged: Dec 14, 2022

Looks like funnyplaying has SP shells coming soon. I think I'll at least hold off on taking action until I see those.

 

[Hanafuda]

This will probably "merge" with my last post from a few days ago and nobody will see it, but I decided on the Extremerate Soft Touch Black shell. Just ordered it. Boring I guess, but I have a standard format GBA that I'm planning to get wild on later, with laminated IPS, bling shell & buttons, usb-c mod, all that. But this SP, I decided (thx @lokomelo) that I just want to keep it in service as-is w/ its 101 screen. I'll make a thread about the shell and swap when I do it.

a mazon.com/Upgraded-eXtremeRate-Replacement-Housing-Gameboy/dp/B0B9N9MKF5/

 

[Deleted member 194275]

Two things:

I liked a lot the opaque black you went with, the kit looks nice all around too, clearly you will not need to reuse anything from the old shell (even the springs are there).

Also I want to say that, while you're inside, you can take the opportunity to upgrade your battery. Nowadays there are 1600mah batteries for the SP for cheap. (If your current battery is not tired yet, ignore what I said)

 

[Hanafuda]

Two things:

I liked a lot the opaque black you went with, the kit looks nice all around too, clearly you will not need to reuse anything from the old shell (even the springs are there).

Also I want to say that, while you're inside, you can take the opportunity to upgrade your battery. Nowadays there are 1600mah batteries for the SP for cheap. (If your current battery is not tired yet, ignore what I said)

The only thing not in the pack are the hinges. And replacements for those are expensive (relatively, for what they are). I've watched several how-to vids on best procedure for removing and reinstalling them without damaging the retaining clips. Wish me luck on that part. The rest is pretty straightforward & simple. Just have to be careful to put the right screws in the right places.

I did a lot of reading and yt watching and extremerate's sp shells are called the best often enough that I decided the extra $10 over generic was worth it. Their "soft touch" white and "Great Wave" models are beautiful, but tend to discolor on the edges. (look into their joycon shells with the same finish for long-term effect) I think black will be mostly immune. I've also read from several sources that transparent shells, cool as they are, are made of more brittle plastic so had to scratch that off my list. I'm not wanting to do this again unless I would stumble upon an OEM graphite shell for cheap so I could return my SP to "original."

 

[Kazesama]

if you still have the broken piece, you can try using superglue and baking soda to piece it back together.

 

[Hanafuda]

if you still have the broken piece, you can try using superglue and baking soda to piece it back together.

It crumbled into 50 pieces and black dust. Strange as hell. My only guess is that an impact from long ago formed stress fractures and as the plastic aged and got more brittle, it finally gave. I've always taken good care of it, but almost 18 years I think, so of course it's been bumped around a bit now and then.

 

[Hanafuda]

So just bringing this to a close, I posted photos of my AGS-101 in its new shell here . Took some time to get it done because once I got it open I discovered the L shoulder microswitch was defective. So it turned into a replace shoulder buttons, replace shell project.

 

[Jacobh]

Looks nice. Hope it plays well with the new switch.

 

[Jayro]

Sometimes on eBay I can get a free shell with buttons when I buy a $50-$60 IPS screen mod, they'll be a bundle and I save money that way. Shells alone can be about $10 with the shitty grey buttons.

 

[Hanafuda]

Looks nice. Hope it plays well with the new switch.

Been putting it through some proving with Mario Kart and Yoshi's Island ... all button action is fine. The new microswitches I installed for the shoulder buttons don't 'click', it's just the feel of a regular button push now. But they work very nicely. I really should have taken a photo of the soldering work - at the time I just wanted to get the job done, but now I wish I had some "guts" photos to show off.

 

[spzo]

Hey @Hanafuda have you kept your old shell? Would you consider selling it? My top outer shell cracked :/ only need that part