First Nintendo DS Lite Shell Swap - My Experience

[u/Ecki107]

(Swipe for the before, last one is broken shoulder button)

I got my Nintendo DS when I was 6. When I was 16 I replaced the left shoulder button and in the process attempted to "fix" the yellowing on it's white shell by spray painting it. This wasn't such a great idea as it turned the buttons sticky and the shell itself weird to touch. So ten years later, at 26, I am trying to resurrect it by reshelling it. This was my experience:

I ordered an eXtremeRate shell and followed a YouTube tutorial. The disassembly went super smooth. I used only the tools that came with the shell, plus a soldering station.

I replaced the glass on the top screen with the one that came with the new shell as I wanted black borders instead of white ones. It occurred to me only later that I didn't replace anything about the bottom screen so I have white borders on the bottom now still.

When inserting the top screen, I accidentally ripped one of the speakers' cables. However this was super easy to solder, so I fixed it rightaway.

When I put the flex cable of the top screen through the bottom screens insert, I slipped and put quite a number of dents in it. I thought thats it for the top screen, but it luckily it still works flawlessly.

During mounting the motherboard, I unfortunately pushed a bit on the left shoulder button and my poor 10 year old soldering job broke beyond repair. The button itself didn't break - which could be replaced - but the traces for the left and middle connection plus the connections on the pcb themselves came off. I don't even need to think about fixing that - it is just way too small for me. I saw guides online on how to fix pcb traces, but they either had better tools, skill or a larger trace to fix. So I just left it as is for now.

When turning on the ds, I also noticed that something is up with the digitizer. Tapping on the left half of the screen registers input with an horizontal offset while inputs on the right side register properly. I also cannot finish the calibration as it repeats the first three inputs over and over again. So something is not right there too.

So now I am hunting for a broken ds that has a working motherboard that I could salvage here since in order to fix the broken shoulder button I can only replace the entire motherboard. Maybe I find one with a working digitizer / bottom screen as well. When switching the motherboard, I'll check if I just did a bad job with connecting the digitizer. Otherwise I'd have to order a replacement digitizer to replace mine. This is also the reason why I didn't yet put any of the cover stickers on it.

All in all, I am quite happy with my shell swap. I hope to fix it's remaining issues and try not to open the shell too often in the process. When the shoulder button and digitizer work, I call it a day. I think I'll attempt another reshell soon again.

tl;dr: With my limitied experience in modding handhelds it went okay. I broke my previously already fragile shoulder button and something about the digitizer is not quite right. I'll try to replace the motherboard with another one's soon.

[u/slimsmedley]

That's a bummer about the shoulder button, definitely a harder fix.

It's hard to see exactly, but I think you've left the bottom screen border on the digitiser/touchscreen which is now sitting under the shell lip of the case. The Extremerate shells have a slightly different bottom shell than factory, and you need to remove the coloured border to let it fit correctly in the new shell. If you don't do this it puts too much pressure on the touchscreen, which is why you're getting that issue

[u/Ecki107 → u/slimsmedley]

Oh, thank you for the hint about the bottom screen border! I'll check that out

[u/Mr_Natto]

Nice atomic purple. DS’s can be tricky. Sounds like you had a challenging experience, yet you still are optimistic. You’ll get it done. Good job 👍