Nintendo DSi Mic

Update - You can Now get replacement Mics from here

Trouble shooting the Nintendo DSi Mic, If your NDSi is no longer under warranty and the microphone doesnt work, then you can try the following to fix it.

The NDS Lite microphone does not fit on the NDSi, it is not compatable due to the plug being different size. The NDSi cable is more fragile and smaller in general.

You can get external heaphones with Mic as a work around, but to its not a fix.

I first thought that it was a microphone, so I took the NDSi microphone out and solder an replacement one from a NDS Lite microphone onto the NDSi Mic cable. It turns out in this case to be a faulty cable.

( Hint, use a mutlimeter to check that the microphone cable is OK, ie not broken somewhere in between - in my case it was a faulty cable, at first i thought it was software faulton the NSDi )

I cant find anyone who supplies the NDSi Microphone replacement at the moment, simple fix is to make your own cable and solder it.



I have tested this with a Standard Microphone from a PC head set, and a microphone of a old Motorolla mobile phone and the NDS Lite microphone.

 

Standard Mic of a PC headset.



 

Motorolla Microphone



 

I ended up, using the cables of the Motorolla microphone as it has plugs and is easier to take apart in future. I ended up using the standard NDSLite microphone attached to the smallest trace wire I could find laying around.



 

Nintendo NDSi F1 Fuse

The Nintendo DSi Fuse are located on both the mainboard and the sub board underneath the battery.

F1 Fuse on the Sub Board



2nd F1 Fuse Location on the mainboard



 

I cant seem to find a F2 Fuse for the NDSi. But I had a NDSi with the Blown Fuse symptoms.

The NDSi when plugged into power, light will go solid amber as if it was charging, but will not power On.

When I remove the battery while it was charging with a solid amber light, the amber light will then blink on and off.

I have ruled out the screens with a working NDSi. On closer inspection to the mainboard. I notice that one of the smd was slightly damaged with the top silver part missing on the edge. I dont know the exact part and did not have a spare NDSi mainboard to get spare parts off.



I replaced it with a similar part I pulled off a NDS Lite board, when I out it all back together and powered it on, The NDSi turned on and worked.



 

I cant gurantee this to work in all cases, but it is worth a try.

UPDATE 21-01-2011 Work In Progress

I have been given a water damaged NDSi, which I eventually got working with luck by cleaning the contacts and getting rid of the oxidation. The unit powers on and everything works, however when the Battery ran out and recharging it, the  unit does not charge. All fuses on the NDSi was fine.

Opened up a working NDSi and found that the voltage across the main plun from the power adaptoer is 5V and the Voltage across the Battery terminal is osilating between 1V and 4.2V in 1 second intervals.

The Faulty NDSi had no voltage. Google search of the IC ID number on the Chip I suspected had returned no results. However doing further research in creating my own charging circuit I can across the following IC.

MICROCHIP - MCP73831T-2ACI/OT - LI-ION/LI-POLY CHARGE CONTROLLER

 Technical Spec MCP93831T

UPDATE 24/5/2011

Sorry for the delay and lack of updates - dont have too much time on my hand atm or get sidetracked, I got an email from someone who couldnt wait for me to try it - so he went out and got the IC and replaced it himself. Thanks to DAVE, he got lucky and this fixed his charging issue on the NDSi.



""



just thought id drop u a message

i went n bought a few of the charge controllers today



swapped it out and without a battery in teh charge light was flashing ;)



put the battery back in and the charge light goes solid and is now charging the batter ;)



you can update your website with the info now ;)



thanks for your info and thougth id update you ;)



im not sure if this will work for all of them as other components may be damaged with water as we both know this can happen



may b i got lucky

or may b this is a common fault



thanks



dave""

So I guess it wont hurt to try it and you got nothing to lose.



 

Nokia NDSL Charger

WARNING - Do this at your own risk

This could be done to other obsolete Chargers to save them from landfill. I have left out the wiring part - those that understand the basics of Electronics will know what to do. Those that dont - shouldnt attempt it, if you put the wrong polarity to your NDSL you may blow more then a fuse,

Sometimes getting the original charger is the best option -the quality is soo much better, however the price cant be justifield as the cost is more then a fraction of what the actual unit is worth. You can get the $5 cheapie of Ebay - but you get what you pay for.

Plugging the cheap charger in and out of the wall causes the diodes to explode, it is easy to happen as most of the time the wall insert is not thick enough to make good contact. This wont last more then 5 Mins.

Cheap Ebay Charger 5.0V 500mA

The other Ebay charger you find is a little bit better - however you need an adaptor to plug into the wall and the internal looks cheap aswell.

US type NDSL Ebay Cheap Charger 5.2V 450mA

Copared to the Original Charger, the picture speaks for itself.

Original NDSL Charger - 5.2V 450mA

There Next best option I found was that I had lots of spare Nokia Chargers lying around. 10yrs ago everyone had a Nokia.

So the rating is about the same as that of the NDSL charger. So I solder the NDSL cable from the Crap Ebay charger onto the Nokia Charger.

Nokia Charger 5.7V 850mA

Nokia Charger 5.7V 800mA

Nokia Charger 5.7V 800mA

The end product works much better then the Cheap Ebay units and saves on EWaste of throwing your old Nokia chagers away, as you can see the internal of the Nokia Charger is a much better quality then the Ebay Units.

Nintendo DS Lite Repair Scenario

Some of the problems when repairing the Nintendo DS Lite can be simple and cheap, such as a fuse problem or expensive water damaged problem. Hopefully this will give you some understanding of diagnosing and fixing Nintendo DS Lite.

I got a batch or NDSL to repair - all do not power up and turn on at all. Here are the common faults. Any new scenarios I come across I will post it here, or if you have one that I havnt come across yet - let me know.

Simple Fuse replacement

Check the fuse and solder new fuse in. Usual symptoms are no power but charge light on when plugged to power.

Fuse and Dry Joint, loose components

In this case the fuse was OK. Seems like the NDSL was also dropped with a SMD component floating around causing it not to power up. Solder SMD component that fell off back on and it worked.













 

Blown Fuse and Faulty/burnt TOP screen ribbon cable

In this case, the fuses were blown and when the NDSL tried to power up it the bottom screen flashed white and went off after replacing the Fuses. On closer inspection the top screen ribbon cable was damaged due to fuse and NDSL shorting. This can be repaired but the silver resin cost more then the screen.

Replacing the top screen requires you to also desolder the speaker and resolder it onto the new screen, which is fairly easy to do. ( This is done for DS Lites that are in two pieces - you would also need to replace Mic and wireless antenna. )

Water Damage Nintendo DS Lite ( expensive repair )

Water damaged NDSL can be hit and miss. I have repaired some with obvious signs of water damaged but only the fuse was blown and it worked.

This one pictured here is very expensive repair - not worth repairing really - but it depends on what can be salvaged. The board is rusted and seems like it was in water for a very long time. ( didnt notice when I bid on it on Ebay - so beware )

To get this up and running you will need to replace the Motherboard, Both screens and while your at it replace the touch screen aslo. Only thing that could be salvagable is the shell, speaker, mic and wireless antenna.











 

Water Damage Nintendo DS Lite ( Repairable )

Bought this off Ebay for $29.95 delivered ( was put in a washing machine ) and found out that the motherboard was still good but Both screen were dead. Total parts to repair was around $30. If the motherboard is bad then it isnt really worth fixing, so its a gamble. Not all of the time though the waterdamage one above wasnt worth getting.



Below, you can clean it with isopropyl alcohol and a cotton bud. You can also scap the corrosion with a scaple.



Picture or burnt ribbon cable.

Another scenario - Burnt out motherboard ( expensive repair )

In this case, It doesnt smell burnt but looks fried. Most likely cause would be 240v power/110v supply attached to NDSL plugged into wrong power voltage. Screens were OK, but when I placed a spare motherboard on there is a constant high pitched buzzzz.....annoying - thought it was speakers and replace it - buzz still there, I suspect that its the bottom LCD Screen.

Re-Sit Wireless (very easy - simple scenario that I came across )

 

"IT STOPPED WORKING, CHARGING LIGHT COMES,POWER LIGHT COMES ON, BUT NOTHING ON THE SCREENS"

I got this one working by resitting the wireless, This NDSL I got about AUD$60 AUD delivered. When it powers on theres Green lite but no screen, charge light is fine. When I opened it, the fuses were OK, just noticed the Wireless bit wasnt as firm, re-sit it and then tested it. Then the unit powered on and works fine.

Faulty Case / Cracked Hinge

"NINTENDO DS LITE **  BLACK** FAULTY TOP SCREEN DOES NOT WORKTOP RIGHT HAND HINGE BROKEN, CAN PLAY GAMES ON BOTTOM SCREEN, GOOD FOR PARTS OR SOMEONE THAT KNOWS HOW TO FIX IT,"

Got these for $50AUD each, To get these working again, I needed a new Case and Top screen. It was a easy fix.