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TAM Arm Light Advance
review and pictures by Xcandescent
Introduction
When it comes to the screen of the GBA, most people fall into one of two
camps: the "I can't see a damn thing" camp, and the "are you freaking
blind?!" camp. I fall firmly in the former category. =)
Many external solutions exist on the market right now, but none of them are
even close to perfect. They either don't light the whole screen, have
serious glare issues, come with stupid magnifiers which make the screen
fuzzy/blurry, or some horrid combination of all of the above.
Because of this, hobbyists have taken it upon themselves to craft a better
solution. Some have been experimenting with internal lighting (most
notably, portablemonopoly.com), and some have focused on external lighting
(this site and many others). Nintendo themselves have licensed a couple of
solutions -- but so far, the only one to be seen domestically (the Light
Boy Advance) is probably inferior to ... well, just about everything else.
;)
The other solution which Nintendo licensed is the Arm Light Advance. Made
by a company called TAM, it has not yet seen domestic release -- but is
easily available through many importers. Most people have avoided trying
the light due to its high cost (averaging around $33 w/o shipping).
This article is the first comprehensive review of the Arm Light that I'm
aware of. For the impatient, here's a quick summary:
Is it perfect? No.
Is it brighter than other commercial solutions? Much brighter.
Does it have better screen coverage than other commercial solutions? Beats
tham all.
Is it worth the cash? Yup.
Does it beg to be modded? Awwwww, yeah!
Physical Construction
Physically, the Arm Light Advance is a HUGE hunk of plastic. It is both
longer and wider than the GBA, and adds more than an inch of thickness in
its folded position.
For reference, here's a side shot of the GBA with a Pelican LS:
The back of the box has a picture of the Arm Light folded with the LED's
pointing down. I've tried that, but turning the heads all the way around
seems to be physically impossible without breaking the light. It doesn't
matter anyway, because the LEDs are well protected by clear plastic
lenses.
Each head has a metallic "cup" which serves as a reflective mount. The
LEDs appear to be attached to a rectangular base, which is screwed into
the head.
The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed multiple LEDs in each head.
That's right -- this is a FOUR-LED light!
The LEDs are powered by 2 "AAA" batteries, and attach to the GBA with a
(disturbingly cheap) plastic clip. Even though it's a Japanese product, it
does have "Arm Light Advance" emblazoned in all caps on the battery
cover -- along with a GBA logo (which I guess indicates that it's
officially licensed?) Perhaps in English because they plan to sell it in
the U.S.? (Let's hope so!)
The clip is the only big fault I can find with this light. It's
constructed using cheap, bendy plastic that I swear will break every time I
take off or put the light on the GBA. The bottom portion of the clip has
plastic indents which fit into the screw holes directly underneath the L
and R switches (turn over your GBA and you'll see what I mean). It takes a
fair amount of force to take off and put on the light, and I always cringe
whenever I see the plastic bending around the flat portion of the GBA
before it sets into the screw holes. I've found that the easiest way to
take off/put on the light is to swing the arms all the way back, so they're
not in the way.
The big mystery from seeing photographs of this light is: "how adjustable
are those arms?" Answer: not much. You have a pivot at the base (where
the arms attach to the clip) which has 3 "click" positions corresponding to
folded down, up, and folded back. There's an up/down pivot at the top of
the arms, then finally a swivel pivot for each head. The arms do NOT
extend or collapse in any direction, nor do the heads collapse into the
arms -- you just swivel them around their pivot points. As it turns out,
this doesn't matter much in practice.
I have not had the chance to test battery life, or to disassemble the unit
yet. (Hey, for that money, YOU'D be cautious too! ;)
Performance
I said at the very top of this review that the Arm Light Advance is not
perfect. So what IS perfect?
In my mind, a perfect external light has bright, even lighting over the
ENTIRE screen, with no dark spots. It has the lights positioned so that
there is either no or minimal glare. Basically, it should give the same
quality light as a backlit LCD.
This unit, although it's bright, has one annoying flaw: the size of the
spotlights from each head aren't wide enough. As a result, even when you
overlap the spots, there are dark areas at the top and bottom center of the
screen. They actually form a sort of "V" shape, with a larger dark area at
the top of the screen than the bottom. You can adjust the lights so the
spot hits higher/lower on the screen, but there will always be dark spots
somewhere.
I've taken two shots with the spots separated, then overlapped to give you
an idea of the screen coverage:
From playing with the Energizer light, I know for a *fact* that it's
possible to light the whole screen with just TWO correctly positioned LEDs,
so what gives? As an experiment, I took the unit off and oriented it so
that just one head was lighting the screen -- but this time with the LEDs
oriented left-right instead of top-bottom (with respect to the screen).
Oddly enough, it managed to cover nearly the whole screen (albeit with less
brightness). So it would seem that the positioning of the LEDs, and
possibly the shape/size of the reflector, conspire to give less than ideal
results with decent LEDs.
That said, when positioned correctly, it gives amazing results:
Yes, those were ALL taken in complete darkness, with only the Arm Light
Advance as a light source. I know of no other commercial solution which
comes close.
You may notice that the light is bright enough (and my camera sensitive
enough) to actually pick up smudges and dust on the screen. You can even
see my fingerprints in the closeup shots. ;) Reflective glare from the
right LED head is visible as well -- however it isn't very bright in the
shots, or in actual use.
You may also notice that all the shots are taken from an angle which is NOT
directly overhead to the screen. This is because I shot in the dark using
a tripod -- and I would need a way to position the GBA between the legs of
the tripod directly under the lens, but within adequate shooting distance
for the closeups, to get a correct head-on shot. As you might expect, the
reflective LCD screen seems to give the brightest results when viewed
head-on at a 90 degree angle. Because of this, all the shots are slightly
*less* bright than you would actually see when viewing head-on. That said,
I think they're still representative of what you can expect.
Notice that, because the LEDs are placed to the *sides* of the screen
rather than overhead, that all reflective glare now comes from the sides.
Ideally, an external lighting unit would have an LED (or LEDs) with both
sufficient brightness AND viewing angle that they could cover the screen,
but be positioned far enough away from it that glare wouldn't be a problem.
(For example, positioning the LEDs above the top of the screen -- but
slightly *behind* the rear edge of the GBA, so that you wouldn't see glare
no matter what angle you rotated the screen to). Because the heads are
positioned so close to the edge of the plastic screen cover, getting glare
by turning the unit side-to-side is fairly easy. However, this is offset
by the fact that the LEDs are rather dim compared to the Energizer/Photon
Light/etc. models (but brighter than the popular Radio Shack LEDs). People
have masked off the extra plastic around the screen to avoid glare before,
and I see no reason why that wouldn't work here. Even simple masking tape
should work (though it's ugly).
Other Issues -- Modding???
Aside from the annoying plastic clip, the only real issue with this light
is the uneven screen coverage. I'm sure a few people will complain that
the lack of perfect coverage makes it not worth the price, but I beg to
disagree.
Part of the problem with constructing a "perfect" external light is that
most people can't just mold light shields out of thin air. With enough
time, it's simple enough to master the electronics theory involved in
constructing the necessary circuit, and to figure out the ideal
positioning -- but actually MAKING the physical structure to support all
that is a huge problem.
If you actually add up the cost of doing an average dual-LED light shield
mod, odds are you will either meet or exceed the $30 mark. (If you're like
I am, and have to constantly tinker with everything, that cost goes up
considerably. ;) Simple experimentation with the Energizer and Photon
Lights has shown me that, at the height of an average light shield, those
LEDs largely go to waste -- they don't reach maximum efficiency (in terms
of screen coverage and overall brightness) unless they're mounted much
higher. Paul's Viper and Cyclops mods also reflect this fact.
So, for someone who just wants a super-bright solution with reasonable
screen coverage out of the box, buying an Arm Light is a much better deal
than buying an inferior light and trying to hack it into shape. Plus, the
fact that the Arm Light has the height advantage over other shields marks
it as a good candidate for modding with brighter LEDs.
However, before anything like a 4-LED swap can happen, a few basic
questions need to be answered.
First -- is the Arm Light Advance powering its current LEDs correctly for
maximum brightness?
Right now, you have 4 LEDs running on a 3V power supply. Most white LEDs I
know of have a knee voltage of around 3.6V. The knee voltage is the narrow
range at which a diode starts to pass much more current with minimal
voltage increase. Below the knee voltage, the resistance in the LED is
much higher, and does not allow much current to pass. As you increase
voltage through the knee range, the resistance of the LED drops
dramatically, and eventually becomes negligible.
With LEDs, more current = more light, but too much current = burn out.
This is why, if you're not careful with the amount of voltage you're
providing, you can burn out an LED with too much current -- hence, the
addition of a resistor in series to limit excess voltage.
Additionally, increased current = increased battery consumption, which
means shorter battery life.
For every LED you work with, the key is figuring out which voltage produces
what current, which current produces what brightness, and balancing the two
to optimize battery life and brightness.
Now, assuming that these LEDs have a higher knee voltage than 3V (and they
probably do), the question becomes: how exactly are they being powered to
give off sufficient brightness? Is there a step-up circuit? Are the LEDs
just being wired in parallel straight to the batteries? What ARE the
actual voltage/current characteristics of these LEDs? Investigation into
all of these areas would yield valuable information for improving the
light.
Of course, improving the light assumes that one can take it apart in the
first place. Since I haven't disassembled mine yet, I don't know what's po
ssible. I DO know that the head of the screw attaching the plate holding
the LEDs to the light is visible through the lens cover. This is BAD,
because it implies that you need to remove the lens cover first ... and
there's no obvious way that jumps out at me just from looking at the unit.
I'll just have to get out my screwdriver and see how far I can go.
Remember -- this is a $33 light. I only intend to do what I can without
breaking the damn thing. That means I'm not even going to THINK about
doing a mod until I know what can/can't be taken apart, and what circuitry
it already has. However, the potential for modding is so great (4-LED swap
... drool ...) that I'm sure SOME of you will want to buy and tinker with
Arm Lights of your own. ;)
Where to Buy?
Check around the Web; there are importers here and in Hong Kong who stock
this. I got mine from National Console Support (www.ncsx.com)
-XCN-
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