Found my old Nintendo DS Lite and decided to reshell it
Writing this post because reshelling was painful. The pain being coiling the ribbon cable of the topscreen through the hinge.
While going through my old stuff last month, i found my old DS, and instead of getting rid of it, i decided to give it a new life and gift it to my little brother. I let him choose a new shell for the DS.
But before i could give it away, i wanted to fix it.
It had a broken topscreen (it somehow rusted), the buttons were all not working proper (i can't remember a time were our L/R buttons ever worked). The digitizer has seen better days. The hinge was broken. Surprisingly the battery was holding up, it didn't turn into a spicy pillow.
I ordered a new digitizer and topscreen for the repairs. (both from Aliexpress)
Some pics of the old DS:
the charging port might look weird but it still works :)
Some pics of its insides:
there was some corrosion on the button contacts, the blackish spots
In order to get rid of the corrosion on the button contacts, i cleaned them with a Q-Tip and some Isopropyl alcohol. I had to use grit paper 1000 on the up/down/left/right buttons, had to scrub the corrosion off, and cleaned them again afterwards (with isopropyl alcohol).
Cleaning the L/R buttons was much more difficult. You had to force open the little blocks were the button contacts sit inside, take the little metallic thin disc-like objects out and scratch the corrosion gently off of them. They are tiny and fragile. Then scratch the button contacts clean as well, they sit inside the blocks and are difficult to reach. I used a needle for this part. But this was still not as bad or as difficult as coiling up and pulling the ribbon cable of the topscreen through the hinge.
Some pics of the rusty topscreen. I didn´t know it was rusting, i only found out after having opened it for reshelling:
the rust was leaking from the side of the lcd screen
Unfortunally i didn't take that many pics of the reshelling process itself. This was after i did change the topscreen out and put the new digitizer on the bottomscreen. From here the last step was putting the L/R shoulder buttons in and closing the shell.
Some pics of the finished reshell:
I like the matt finish of the shell. The new digitizer is also very good, installing it wasn't difficult at all. The topscreen has a slight yellowish tint to it, though i don't really mind it. But because i put in a new topscreen and i dont have any soldering equipment, losses had to be cut. The speakers are no more. The aux still exist though, listening through headphones is possible.
All the button are functional again, which made me happy. Am especially happy about the L/R buttons, they are functional again :)
My younger brother was happy about his gift, which made me even happier. We also found an old R4 card of ours and put some games on it.
For anybody attempting a reshell, who never did this before. Be very careful with the ribbon cables. Especially the topscreen one. I almost lost it while trying to coil it up slowly and trying to gently pull it through the hinge. It is doable. If I managed, so can you. I believe in you.
Just felt like sharing my first time experience of reshelling my old childhood DS with all of you, have a nice day everyone.