Wow, my kids are really trying to keep Nintendo in business. Avery’s latest DS, her second (she had her first one stolen at the South Mall when we were up North last Summer) had the trackpad go on the fritz. It was still a usable ds if you wanted to play GBA games. Unfortunately as we got this one from a co-worker of Erin’s who bought it over a year ago and never played it it was out of warranty. The replacement is $85.

When Paige got her first DS it was broken a few months later when Avery sat on it while they were visiting in South Carolina for the month of August. It was a fully functional DS but the case was cracked. Good thing I kept it. We figured what have we got to lose? Let’s see about swapping the trackpad out of Paige’s first DS and put it in Avery’s second.

We had to order a size 000 tri blade screwdriver which was $10, shipping included. It arrived today and I set about taking care of business with some web diagrams. I must be getting old, because some of the electronics were very hard to see. I mean, a ribbon cable 2mm wide. Getting down to the trackpad was pretty easy, having come from a history of disassembling all sorts of laptops. But getting the trackpad off was hair raising and meticulous. It was held on by 2 ribbon cables, one about an inch wide and the other aforementioned about 2 mm wide. You had to be very careful with the latches on these because on false move and it’s game over. The 1 inch wide ribbon cable I had to slide 000 size flat blade jewelers screwdriver under the black lip of the latch and carefully pry it up. The 2mm required the same screwdriver but I had to slip it in behind to the back of the latch which was partially under some component that was raised off the board. I had to do this for both DS’s.

When I put the old trackpad in the new DS the reverse was just as hair raising. Getting both ribbon cables back in the slot was difficult, especially the 2mm one. But I persevered. The last bit of difficult was putting the R and L bumper buttons back in the top of the case. They were spring loaded. But once back in, I slapped the screws where they belonged (I made good use of my case for holding and keeping separate the parts) and fired it up.

The trackpad worked just fine, although it was a strobey and there was some (for lack of better word) fog at the bottom; but it was usable. So I am out $10 but at least Avery is back in business.