Powering the Game Boy Advance
Channel: makho
Date: 01/01/2024

Confused about battery mods? What's the best one? Are they dangerous? Let's discuss. 

In this stream, I will be discussing the trade-offs between different types of fuel cells for Game Boy Advance consoles. Are alkaline batteries the best bet? What about Lithium? What about rechargeable lithium? NiMh? Zinc-Carbon? Etc. 

Don't care for the points and just want a blanket rec? 

IKEA LADDA (best value overall): https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/ladda-rechargeable-battery-70303876/

Retromodding Rechargeable Battery Pack (USB C) (best LiPo mod): https://www.retromodding.com/collections/game-boy-advance/products/game-boy-advance-rechargeable-usb-c-battery-pack

Energizer Lithium (best runtime): https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Ultimate-Lithium-Size-Batteries/dp/B004EFT2BU

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Since my original video (over three years ago) on this topic (https://youtu.be/rMTdgaamlno), I've been gathering data on as many battery mods and just plain ol' batteries as I can. N=1 and N=2 in a lot of cases but if my units are representative of the rest of production units then that should not be an issue. Take failures with a grain of salt but runtimes should all be the same. 

Here is my raw data, reduced to a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/113G5AMJeUQcpdTG7E4odcQmEyFnjQL888x8lGAypesc/edit?usp=sharing

I do have video footage of all the timed tests I've done (run time and charge time) and images for some of the static test results such as capacity testing or low voltage cutoff values. I will not be uploading or providing this footage due to the sheer volume of footage I have. I can back up the spreadsheet if there is any question of veracity, however. 

Note that there are gaps in the data. I intend on filling as many as I can but given how long I've been working on this and how many gaps remain, I would not hold your breath. The universe keeps feature creeping this subject and I've been unable to keep up for the most part. It seems that every other week, there's a new battery mod... or a new test procedure for more data. 

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Please be sure to check my website for more information including some handy links for useful resources, tools I use, and my socials: http://makhowastaken.com/