broken gearbest screen

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stef
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Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:46 pm

broken gearbest screen

Post by stef » Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:06 pm

Hey everyone,

First of all I want to thank everyone in this forum for all the nice guides and topics. They've really helped me a lot with building my gameboy.

So I have a question about the gearbest screen that most people use.

I've just finished my 2nd gameboy zero, I've tested it a couple of times, and a couple of days ago my screen went black all of a sudden. I tried checking if I had a short somewhere (which would surprise me since everything is glued down). I also checked if my cables were connected well. Everything seems to be in order...

One thing I noticed is that even after a few seconds of being powered on, something gets very hot on the board, and I mean burn your fingers hot.
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So after reading a bit on the forums I'm pretty confident my board is fried up, and I've ordered a new one. My question to you is, whether you guys think I just had bad luck, or if there is something I could have done wrong which caused the board to fry? I would really hate to repeat the same mistake. The only thing I can think of is that maybe a small piece (1-2mm) of copper wire got into in the gameboy shell before I closed it and shorted something, but I couldn't find anything.

Some info on the wiring:
Yellow wire to tv pad on the pi zero W
GND wire to the gnd pad beside the tv pad on the pi
White wire taped off
Red wire to power strip

I also read on Tinkerboy's website a different way of wiring. Which involves using 2 ground wires. I tried this, but my board was already broken so... Do you guys recommend this to the way I did it?

I hope this was a clear explanation.

Best of luck to you all in your projects!

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rodocop
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Re: broken gearbest screen

Post by rodocop » Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:33 pm

I think just bad luck. I recently had 2 gearbest screens do the same thing. I've used 20+ and 2 have failed recently, just like you said. Worked for a bit. Then stop and get scorching hot.

In both cases I contacted gearbest and got new screens send out free of charge. I have no idea why they failed since nothing out of the ordinary happend at all.

I've seen it mentioned a few times now...I wonder if there is something going on with the manufacturing of these boards....

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tinkerBOY
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Re: broken gearbest screen

Post by tinkerBOY » Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:57 pm

The LED driver circuit in this module uses cheap unshielded inductor which is probably the main cause of some heat/unstable issues.
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stef
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Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:46 pm

Re: broken gearbest screen

Post by stef » Sun Jun 16, 2019 12:44 am

Thank you tinkerboy and rodocop for your fast replies.

I will contact gearbest to see if I can get a refund for this screen.

So if I'm correct my wiring was OK? Or should I try to do it tinkerboy's way next time with 2 ground wires?

Best regards

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rodocop
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Re: broken gearbest screen

Post by rodocop » Sun Jun 16, 2019 8:50 am

Your wiring is fine, and so is tinkerboys. Up to you what method you use.

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