My DS Lite has loose buttons (mostly A and dpad right), and I wanted to fix that.

Why not grab broken DS Lite's from eBay and cannibalize them? Might as well mix case parts to make a stylish DS.



Meet Black and Blue. Both broken the same way (apparently): when given a good battery and plugged in, charge light turns on for one second, then off, and that's all.


Blue is in bad shape. It's covered in some polish thing, but someone tried to remove it off the top using a scratchy sponge, leaving the top rather ugly. It also got some physical damage. The inside is a little dirty, as if it was dropped in a chocolate drink or something, it's weird. Its battery is broken.

Black looks better (mostly intact), and its battery is OK.


Some research shows that the "charge light on for one second" thing can come from blown fuses. The fuses are here, top one is F1, bottom one is F2.

So I quickly try to short the fuses to see what happens.

Blue doesn't react to it. It's likely that its power system is failing somewhere.

Black, when shorting F2, starts... but the bottom screen flashes white and then it turns off. Which indicates a faulty top screen.


Then we get to soldering. Investigation shows that both consoles have F2 blown, but F1 intact. Since I know how to fix Black, I cannibalize Blue and grab its F1 fuse (F1 and F2 are the same).

Soldering a 1.5mm long fuse with unadapted tools is a ton of fun.


then just take Blue's top screen and you have a working DS


... nope, sadly. Trying that, I discover that Blue's top screen is damaged, making it mostly unusable.


Anyway, Black can run games fine and will make a perfectly good DS once given a good top screen.

The game there is MKDS. The wreckage at the top is because I had tried to disassemble Blue's top screen later on (I wanted to see if I could use Blue's bottom screen to replace Black's faulty top screen, but nope: the screens are the same but the ribbons are different and they're part of the screens). The screen wasn't broken by me.

I was able to get a replacement top screen from eBay for mostly nothing. Once I get it, Black will become a perfectly good DS and likely be sold over eBay.

Blue will provide replacement buttons for my DS, and case parts if I can manage to get them nice again. I'm trying to polish the top, with okay-ish results, but it still needs work.

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

yep although I'm running into trouble with the Y screws, my custom screwdriver failed


here's a pic of what I was able to do, though:

pic

to the right, my DS with the top replaced

to the left, the bottom inside for my DS, not yet mounted (and I also need to replace the button things inside)

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

I gave up, the screws on my DS are absurdly tight, I broke my crappy custom screwdriver a couple times...

I ordered a proper Y screwdriver, they're cheap as fuck anyway

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

http://i.imgur.com/5078Ix6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cBgSZw2.jpg

my DS is done getting customized, using all the non-damaged parts I could salvage from Blue


still waiting for Black's top screen

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

Thanks


The blue is less blue in reality though, my phone tends to make it bluer.

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

also I got the top screen for Black, unexpectedly early... but that's the only good new really


ordering a cheap replacement screen wasn't so much a good idea, the colors are less nice than the original (seems to mostly be that the backlight isn't as strong/white), and there's a pixel that is stuck red


I'm not sure whether I should try again and order a genuine top screen this time


other than that, Black works fine

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

I finally got the new top screen for Black, this time it's pretty good, exactly a genuine screen minus a slightly different backlight

I'm keeping the other screen as a spare part though, as well as a spare bottom screen, we never know

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

heh, don't we all love old things



the electronics venture continues, but this time with my phone, I need to replace the power button and that'll be a ton of fun

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

not if you're careful

the key is mostly figuring out how to disassemble things, when to be careful and when to use some force (for example, you have to be esp. careful with the DSLite top screen ribbon)

if you have trouble figuring it out, you can find disassembly videos on Youtube, that's what I did for my phone and some other things


regarding your Game Gear, you can probably find a power cord on eBay or something, dunno though

---

I also didn't post about my phone: replacing the power button wasn't that hard, it's attached to a little ribbon thing that also has the notification LED and light sensor

although I broke the new one somehow by trying to align it better so the notification LED would be visible, so I had to order another one :/

I didn't touch it again now that it works, the notification LED isn't very useful anyway (on this phone model it turns off after a while to save battery power or something)

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?

hello thread, long time no see. what's been happening since the little adventure with Black and Blue?

mh

moved out from my parents' home, transitioned, been through squats and shit...

during development of melonDS, and wifi reverse-engineering, Black has been a good companion DS (was helpful to have two), and it still works absolutely fine. my original white DS also works well but shows some signs of fatigue.

eventually, I was able to retrieve a whole bunch of shit from my childhood bedroom... including the leftover parts from Blue. I brought all of these back, even the motherboard, which I figured would be good for parts since it was dead.

after having successfully fixed a couple 68k Macs, I wondered if I could use my newly acquired skill to fix Blue...

and, well



through the power of BODGE WIRES, Blue lives again! sorta

basically: the VDET signal (which is used to determine whether the battery is working) wasn't making it to the power management IC. I had a suspicion it'd be an issue of that vein.

I don't know where and how the break occured in the PCB, but it's worth reminding you that Blue was in terrible shape originally, with signs that something had been spilled into it, so... yeah. kind of a miracle to even see it working again, actually.

now I want to finish touching up the motherboard and see if I can actually rebuild a complete DS. I have almost all the parts needed for that...

would also help seeing if Blue has any other faults.

so far:

* I need SMD fuses! keeping these bridged isn't too safe.
* the connector for the touchscreen is broken
* I need to put back the cart slots, I'd removed them to clean up underneath
* the rubber contact things for the buttons are missing, presumably cannibalized to replace the failing ones in my original DS
* I need a genuine top screen -- the one seen above is a bad cheapo one, good for testing purposes but that's about it
* not sure how viable Blue's case is, as some of the parts are broken

____________________
Kuribo64 - melonDS

want some revolution in your coffee?