Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finished!

lovablechevy

Active Member
after about 3 months work, spread out over about 3 years... this is finally done! woot!

the handy gear is the ultimate game gear. 5" screen, internal rechargeable batteries, recased, master gear converter hard wired on, many things removed to make the game gear able to run off 7.4v (and also save tremendously on battery life). i wanted it to look as much like an actual game gear as possible. placement of everything is based off of the game gear itself. anyway, enough chattering, on to some videos and pics!

youtube videos:
detailed description
quick description
level 1 of sonic

155-soniclights.jpg








specs:
system - game gear
batteries - 2 3.7v li-ion 5700 mAh (6 hours - video gets wobbly at 5.5 hours - power led flashes and the video colors invert a few mins before batteries die)
case - frankencased zn-40, game gear case, and master gear converter housing
screen - psone screen modded with 6 leds
controller - original game gear buttons and pads, random controller cut up for the board
random tidbits - power led changed from red to pink; case has custom made decals/sticker; has a master gear converter hard wired on to allow for sms playability

if you are interested, here is the partial build thread (that i was making during a contest on another forum back in the day) and the link to all the pics i took.

a few measurements of the system:

weight of system (by itself/with gg game/with sms game) - 2 lbs 1.7 oz/2 lbs 2.8 oz/2 lbs 3.8 oz
thickness - 2 5/8"
height - 5 1/4"
height with sms game - 6 3/4"
length - 9 1/8"

compared to a game gear:

weight of system (by itself/with gg game/with sms game) - 13.4 oz/14.4 oz/ 1 lb 4.1 oz
weight of system with 6 aas (by itself/with gg game/with sms game) - 1 lb 2.3 oz/1 lb 3.3 oz/1 lb 9 oz
thickness - 1 1/2"
thickness with master gear converter - 2 5/8"
height - 4 3/8"
height with sms game - 5 1/16"
length - 8 1/4"

it is just a bit larger than the game gear itself. considering it has a 5" screen, internal batteries, and the master gear converter hard wired on, that’s pretty fricken awesome! not to mention it looks fricken awesome! tee hee! :)

original post
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

That's awesome. Great job! How did you make the case?
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

thanks, ss!

Σigma said:
That's awesome. Great job! How did you make the case?
with lots of epoxy putty, bondo, sanding, paint, and patience.

this is what the case looked like before all the work went into it:

 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

Awesome case job. Did you start with a ZN40/45 ?
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

That's a very nice replicaton of the original case! You mention the battery life being longer, do you have an estimate on that?
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

StickfighterTV said:
That's a very nice replicaton of the original case! You mention the battery life being longer, do you have an estimate on that?

not entirely sure yet. i anticipate at least 2x battery life of the 6 aas used in a game gear. the game gear normally got about 3 hours on 6 aas. so i'm anticipating at least 6 hours. but i have to wait till the batteries have a full charge and then sit down for a marathon gaming session to get the actual life timed. :)

i know my friend tibia, when doing her led mod to her game gear, got 3x the battery life out of the 6 aas just by removing some components and getting rid of the horrific backlight. i removed all the same components... so... i really do anticipate 2-3x the 3 hour battery life of the 6 aas.

but only time will tell...
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

Does the screen not stretch? Nevertheless, very nice.
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

nicely done. If I hadn't already known what it was and just glanced it over, it could've been passed off as mass-produced. It really does emulate the feel and style of the original. I like that you even tried to emulate the speaker grill style on the right side by hand including the parts around the edges where its depressed but not a full hole. That's a lot of attention to fine detail.
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

lovablechevy said:
*points up to the specs listed in the first post*

... Facepalm. Oops. In that case, where did you get a white ZN40 ?
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

Σigma said:
Basement_Modder said:
Σigma said:
lovablechevy said:
*points up to the specs listed in the first post*

... Facepalm. Oops. In that case, where did you get a white ZN40 ?
Polycase, just like any other ZN-40.

... But his is white?

1 - i am a girl. there is no "his" to what i own or use

2 - i see they no longer offer white. i bought this case well over 3 years ago. i bought a lot of them. i prefer the white over the black case.
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

I actually couldn't tell it was a ZN-40 until I saw the pictures of the back. Very nice job.
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

XCVG said:
I actually couldn't tell it was a ZN-40 until I saw the pictures of the back. Very nice job.
At first glance I thought it was just an expanded gamegear. Amazing job!
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

Nice, I didn't know people had worked out how to get video output from the Game Gear just yet as well.
 
Re: Handy Gear - lovablechevy's ultimate Game Gear - finishe

Forgot to comment on this. Awesome portable. Made me realize something. Portable Phantasy Star with the original SMS cartridge... :D
 
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