Old Meets New: Keitama 20th Anniversary Retrofit
A bit late to post, but yes, I did get the new 20th Anniversary Connection. I imported the clear retro shell from the US, but I got caught up in thinking about all the mods I wanted to put in it and ultimately forgot to play with it.
I'm all about seeing which pieces of past Tamas go together, and I happened to pick up a complete Blue Yukata Keitama semi-recently...so, I kit-bashed.
As you can see they look pretty similar in terms of construction. We can admire some of the changes made, like making the infrared unit much more compact as well as moving the loop for the jump ring exclusively to one side of the shell for increased strength. The springs on the speaker sound kind of bad as they scream like the Original, but such is life! I am personally bummed about the change from the thinner, harder screws to the super soft fat ones they use on the Originals. Seriously am I the only one who's stripped a ton of those?
Luckily, proportions for the screen and buttons are exactly the same. However, you need to file/sand/cut away 3 specific locations on the old Connection shell in order to get the new components to fit: above the screen, on top of the unit beneath the infrared cover, and the top part of the inside of battery case. On an opaque shell these modifications won't be visible so you can be messy, but be very cautious with a clear shell.
The hardest part of the mod, hands-down, is positioning the chip. While the number is the same, the position of the screw holes varies slightly between both models. You WILL have to drill holes in the chip and it WILL get dangerously close to the screen contacts. BE CAREFUL.
I had a really hard time getting the contacts aligned properly...I think I took it apart at least 10 times due to icons and strips of pixels going absent. The alignment above is when I finally got it working!
Anyway put it all back together (making sure you keep the new screen with the new chip as they're not cross-compatible) and tadah! Retrofit complete.
I don't particularly recommend this mod because of permanent alterations to both the chip and the shell, plus the screen/chip realignment process is horrendous. The speaker was also difficult to dislodge on both units resulting in stress lines on the now weakened plastic. If I were to do it again I would unsolder the wires on the original Keitama speaker or even ditch the springs on the new chip and wire the speaker in so it sounds better.
I suppose the most important takeaway here is that, with some elbow grease, it can be done!
Now can someone lend me their Otokitchi so I can ditch this geezer?
