Re-Shelling Nintendo DS Lite?

[wingzrow]

I see alot of auctions for shells online. Is it hard to re shell a ds lite? The hinges on my system broke so changing the color would fix my hinges too.

Is this practical to do?

[megasdkirby]

It's not hard, but I do find it VERY taxing, mainly due to the small parts involved.

Take it easy and have lots of patience...if you can do that, then changing cases is no problem at all.

[wingzrow]

If I find I'm over my head is there someone out there that does these? If at all possible ide like to send it in to someone and pay for the service in addition to the new shell.

[b1aCkDeA7h]

Have a look at a set of instructions to see what exactly you're getting into. As megasdkirby said, it takes a lot of patience, but otherwise, its not that difficult.

I did mine out of necessity, I bought a DS with a cracked case and got a pretty good deal out of it when I bought it. Personally, I would probably not do it if I didn't need to.

[omnedon]

Its Hard.

[dairugger]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!

sorry, ive always wanted to do that!, anyway, im pissed cause my ds lite finally broke. its had a hinge crack for years, which i strengthed with apoxy, anyway my neice was playing it and the wifi and light hinge on the right just fell off along with the top screen! she was gentle with it, i know this because i watched her play with it. the thing has always been babied, like all my stuff.

i havent called nintendo yet, but i did last year and they wanted 70 bucks for it. not happy, just got aliens infenstation and wanted to enjoy that..

can anyone recommend somewhere that has good shells, and how easy is it to do. anybody else do it? suggestions?

[omp!]

I have done about 5 of these things (bastards lol) the hardest bit is feeding the top screen ribbon through to the bottom case, also supporting the bottom screen whilst trying to fit it all back together as the touch screen ribbon can fall out I know add a bit of blue tac just to hold it in place temporarily. Other than that it is smooth sailing. NDSi's are a bigger prick as there are TWO bloody ribbon cables going from the top case to the bottom case! The original DS is a pleasure to do as the top screen ribbon is seperate so makes replacing easier.

I usually get the cases from eBay, no problems thus far. Smoke black is by far the most sexiest (if they can be) in my opinion!

[burn_654]

I bought a $5 ds lite with broken hinge and top screen so I bought pretty much an all new top half on the cheap to fix it. There's plenty of people out there on ebay selling ds lite parts or broken ds lites to get your parts from.

My observations:
Make sure you get a good triwing screwdriver. I mistakenly got 2 cheapo ones from ebay (red handle) and while I was able to finish up (with much torture) they started stripping out fairly easily. That was the biggest issue for me.

Second - watch the shoulder buttons when you're taking it apart. They're spring loaded and ready to fly out. Finding one of the springs after that happens is a pain in the ass. So, tweezers and patience.

Third - watch the positions of the power switch and volume slider when you're putting it back together. I broke my power switch in doing so and had to solder in a new one. Not fun.

[dairugger]

update: so i got my new shell, everything was going well till i tried threading the white cable behind the cartridge slot, it got stuck and what i got back when i pulled was a bare wire.

the bottom touchscreen small ribbon came out and when i tried putting it back in the port broke.

so i need a whole new bottom half of a ds lite as i dont know how to solder a new one back on, its so tiny.

can anyone help? im so pissed at myself right now.

[RedMoogleXIII]

dairugger, I've never had that happen replacing my DS Lite shell, but that just the wire for the WiFi antenna.
As the the P6 connector that the touchscreen cable goes into, you need either a replacement P6 connector, a very fine tipped soldering iron and lots of paitence, or just get a replacement motherboard.

I would say try to find a working one on ebay with busted screens as then you can get both a replacement WiFi antenna and motherboard from it to replace yours.

[Shulamana]

I have a onyx DS Lite that has had a cracked hinge for over two years now. I barely use it and it hasn't broken to the point where it's falling apart, but given all the horror stories I've heard I'm really reluctant to consider trying this myself.