Is it bad to run a gameboy pocket off 5V?

Discussion in 'General' started by McBlasian, Mar 24, 2013.

  1. McBlasian

    McBlasian Active Member

  2. Aux

    Aux Well-Known Member

    IIRC the Pocket uses 2 AAA's... 3v. A quick google of the AC adapter confirms it too provides 3v in. Giving it 5v on that power in will probably be bad times. Depending on kind of regulator, if there even is one, your results may range from your Pocket getting a little warm to killing your board.

    If nobody else jumps in by the time I get home and find my Pocket, I'll pop it open to take a look and give you a more informed answer.
     
  3. McBlasian

    McBlasian Active Member

    Yeah it does run off of 3V normally. I was wondering if anyone knew if adverse affects occurred if you chucked 5V into it instead. Thanks!
     
  4. sjm4306

    sjm4306 Member

    The original gameboy in addition to the pocket both utilize 5V cmos core logic. In order to use 3V, the pocket has a switchmode step up regulator to step this voltage up to the required 5V. I point this out in my teardown video so you would really need to open your gameboy and patch into the 5V output of the boost supply (easily found with a multimeter when the pocket is open and operating) in order to safely feed your system off of 5V. If you need help let me know I have a pocket I could use to find the pinout for the boost module.

    Here's a link to my site with a video showing the internals of the pocket if it helps.
    http://diytronics.blogspot.com/2012/09/ ... ocket.html
     
  5. jfktrey

    jfktrey Newb

    I tried this earlier, and my Pocket ran rather well off of a direct +5V input. Note that I only ran it for about 10 minutes, though - long-term effects are unknown. The output from the regulator seems to be about the same as before, although the -18V output becomes -18.5V, causing the screen to become darker.