After I verified everything was there, it was time to remove the guts of the old DS. I had actually had the occasion to disassemble the bottom half of a DS Lite before, and it's not that tough, shoulder buttons aside. No, what struck fear into my heart was the top half, and the paper-thin ribbon cable that attached the top screen to the DS's motherboard below.
Ribbon cables always trip me up when I'm working on hardware like this. I've yet to actually tear one, though I've come close. The real beast is the little clamp that attaches the cable to the board, though. This particular one flips up, which wasn't immediately obvious to my untrained eyes. When I'd been working on my laptop and in other situations, they all released by sliding the clamp forward along the cable itself. It took me breaking a microscopic piece of plastic off one of these clamps to realize I didn't know what I was doing and sent me running to Google—which is why, dear readers, I posted a disclaimer on the first page that warned you of how bad of an idea it is to use my ramblings here as any sort of guidance.
Besides the ribbon cable, there were a couple other wires to unhook. One was the mic (which I swore I'd break, the thing looked so flimsy); another, I believe, was the Wi-Fi antenna—but don't quote me on that, I'm just an amateur here. Once done, it was time to try to separate the two halves, a task made easier by the fact that, well, they were already halfway separated.
That little black barrel on the left is the actual hinge. It provides the resistance as you swivel your DS Lite open, and is responsible for locking the screen in the almost-fully-open position. On this launch model, the hinge is much tighter and gives far more resistance in that position; on the refurbished model that I got from Nintendo when my mic bit the dust just before the warranty ran out, the hinge operation is much smoother. I imagine that this little black barrel's tension is responsible for the hinge crack problems and indeed the problem I'm fixing here, though I confess I don't have the degree in mechanical engineering to back that up.
On the other side, the ribbon cable as well as a couple other wires do an obscene dance inside a rather small metal cylinder with a slot cut out of it, so that you can actually slip the ribbon cable inside, then wrap it in a circle to give it enough play for the hinge to open and close. This metal cylinder is all that holds the left side of the top screen to the rest of the DS. Even now, as I think back on the work I did, I wonder if I put it in properly. I'm a little afraid I might have shoved it too far in one direction or the other and compromised the integrity of the left side of the hinge. It's far more dangerous for that side to break because of the fragile ribbon cable inside. I may have to revisit that.
That cylinder and the ribbon cable gave me the most trouble of the whole operation. It seemed that no matter what way I threaded it ever-so-gingerly through the slots and through the hinge, there was a threat of it creasing inside the top screen assembly. Creases in these things are bad, as between the thin layers of plastic are tiny wires that can break easily. Thankfully, on my third or fourth try, I got it positioned correctly with no threat of creasing. Everything seemed to be in order, so I set to putting the thing the rest of the way back together, crossed my fingers, and pushed the power button. Success!
Observant readers will note that this isn't exactly a fully green DS Lite. The kit did actually come with replacement green borders for the top and touch screens, and I probably could have put one on the touch screen without much trouble. The top screen scared the crap out of me though, since it was a full shield for the screen rather than just a border to stick in place. Memories of the Afterburner (an aftermarket front-light mod for the original Game Boy Advance) and the sheer quantities of dust that got between it and the fragile LCD inside came flooding back, and I made an executive decision: the thing looks just fine with white screen borders—maybe even a little cooler than the all-green setup! (My wife agreed, though it's possible she was just afraid I'd break her newly repaired system.)
We kept the white stylus from the original DS, too. The included green stylus was a piece of crap. The friction was all wrong. I could just feel my Ouendan spinner skills being compromised when I gave it an experimental slide across the finished product.
Observant readers will also note that there are exposed screws inside the top screen assembly. There are actually little rubber stickers that you can put over the screws that hold the two halves of the top screen, but I opted not to use them, because of one little problem I had with this so-labelled "premium" kit that might call for a re-disassembly down the road.
It's harder to see in my photo than it is in real life, but the top screen juts out a couple millimeters when closed. No matter how I tried to put that top assembly together, I found slight imperfections in the fit, manifested most obviously in how the holes on the top screen's inside cover weren't lining up with the screw holes on the outer cover. Eventually I ended up gingerly but firmly squeezing them in a way I hoped wouldn't break the hinge again until I could get all four screws securely fastened. It's not a perfect fit, but it didn't feel like it was mechanically stressed in a way that would cause problems down the road. I hoped.
And that, dear readers, was my adventure. My wife is now the owner of a DS Lite in a color you simply can't get outside of Europe—and even then, it doesn't have the decidedly jaunty white borders on the inside. It feels appropriately solid; the volume control is actually even more solid compared to the flimsy sliders Nintendo puts in the official model. Even with the extra $10-odd for the "premium" housing that ended up seeming not so premium after all, it was a much better deal than $82.50.
I'm hoping it keeps my wife's DS going for a long time to come. The experience has got me thinking about a change of my own down the road... maybe one of those neat (and probably substantially more high-quality) chrome cases... or gold—when did they get gold?! Hmm...
Ribbon cables always trip me up when I'm working on hardware like this. I've yet to actually tear one, though I've come close. The real beast is the little clamp that attaches the cable to the board, though. This particular one flips up, which wasn't immediately obvious to my untrained eyes. When I'd been working on my laptop and in other situations, they all released by sliding the clamp forward along the cable itself. It took me breaking a microscopic piece of plastic off one of these clamps to realize I didn't know what I was doing and sent me running to Google—which is why, dear readers, I posted a disclaimer on the first page that warned you of how bad of an idea it is to use my ramblings here as any sort of guidance.
Besides the ribbon cable, there were a couple other wires to unhook. One was the mic (which I swore I'd break, the thing looked so flimsy); another, I believe, was the Wi-Fi antenna—but don't quote me on that, I'm just an amateur here. Once done, it was time to try to separate the two halves, a task made easier by the fact that, well, they were already halfway separated.
That little black barrel on the left is the actual hinge. It provides the resistance as you swivel your DS Lite open, and is responsible for locking the screen in the almost-fully-open position. On this launch model, the hinge is much tighter and gives far more resistance in that position; on the refurbished model that I got from Nintendo when my mic bit the dust just before the warranty ran out, the hinge operation is much smoother. I imagine that this little black barrel's tension is responsible for the hinge crack problems and indeed the problem I'm fixing here, though I confess I don't have the degree in mechanical engineering to back that up.
On the other side, the ribbon cable as well as a couple other wires do an obscene dance inside a rather small metal cylinder with a slot cut out of it, so that you can actually slip the ribbon cable inside, then wrap it in a circle to give it enough play for the hinge to open and close. This metal cylinder is all that holds the left side of the top screen to the rest of the DS. Even now, as I think back on the work I did, I wonder if I put it in properly. I'm a little afraid I might have shoved it too far in one direction or the other and compromised the integrity of the left side of the hinge. It's far more dangerous for that side to break because of the fragile ribbon cable inside. I may have to revisit that.
That cylinder and the ribbon cable gave me the most trouble of the whole operation. It seemed that no matter what way I threaded it ever-so-gingerly through the slots and through the hinge, there was a threat of it creasing inside the top screen assembly. Creases in these things are bad, as between the thin layers of plastic are tiny wires that can break easily. Thankfully, on my third or fourth try, I got it positioned correctly with no threat of creasing. Everything seemed to be in order, so I set to putting the thing the rest of the way back together, crossed my fingers, and pushed the power button. Success!
Observant readers will note that this isn't exactly a fully green DS Lite. The kit did actually come with replacement green borders for the top and touch screens, and I probably could have put one on the touch screen without much trouble. The top screen scared the crap out of me though, since it was a full shield for the screen rather than just a border to stick in place. Memories of the Afterburner (an aftermarket front-light mod for the original Game Boy Advance) and the sheer quantities of dust that got between it and the fragile LCD inside came flooding back, and I made an executive decision: the thing looks just fine with white screen borders—maybe even a little cooler than the all-green setup! (My wife agreed, though it's possible she was just afraid I'd break her newly repaired system.)
We kept the white stylus from the original DS, too. The included green stylus was a piece of crap. The friction was all wrong. I could just feel my Ouendan spinner skills being compromised when I gave it an experimental slide across the finished product.
Observant readers will also note that there are exposed screws inside the top screen assembly. There are actually little rubber stickers that you can put over the screws that hold the two halves of the top screen, but I opted not to use them, because of one little problem I had with this so-labelled "premium" kit that might call for a re-disassembly down the road.
It's harder to see in my photo than it is in real life, but the top screen juts out a couple millimeters when closed. No matter how I tried to put that top assembly together, I found slight imperfections in the fit, manifested most obviously in how the holes on the top screen's inside cover weren't lining up with the screw holes on the outer cover. Eventually I ended up gingerly but firmly squeezing them in a way I hoped wouldn't break the hinge again until I could get all four screws securely fastened. It's not a perfect fit, but it didn't feel like it was mechanically stressed in a way that would cause problems down the road. I hoped.
And that, dear readers, was my adventure. My wife is now the owner of a DS Lite in a color you simply can't get outside of Europe—and even then, it doesn't have the decidedly jaunty white borders on the inside. It feels appropriately solid; the volume control is actually even more solid compared to the flimsy sliders Nintendo puts in the official model. Even with the extra $10-odd for the "premium" housing that ended up seeming not so premium after all, it was a much better deal than $82.50.
I'm hoping it keeps my wife's DS going for a long time to come. The experience has got me thinking about a change of my own down the road... maybe one of those neat (and probably substantially more high-quality) chrome cases... or gold—when did they get gold?! Hmm...