Right. so you DS owners will know the drill, my case cracked near the power LED's. Which the forums say is fairly usual. and so, I decided to buy a crystal case replacement off ebay.

Immediately as Im sure you will all say, this reeks of trouble. and indeed, it did get here in three days not two, which leads me to believe they didnt post it when they say they did.

regardless, it came, and its a very neat kit, with its own tri wing screwdriver. as most people haven't got them (I do, because Im a proper tool-nerd).

In the interests of science and napalm riot I thought Id take pictures as I went. Sadly, when I got started I fucked the piccies right off and hammered on with the work asafp at usual breakneck speed.

Like most techies, I believe I am the god of anything silicone and so it took getting stuck for half an hour for me to admit defeat and revert to the instructions.

Except there were none in the package. There was however a slip of paper with links to a youtube video and a flickr picture set. So on I cracked with those. The flickr picture set, was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard and the youtube video takes forever to tell you anything, as they go a breakneck speed and you have to keep pausing it to do as they say, and then going back to try it again.

This is by far one of the most fiddly jobs I have ever tried to do. It took me about 4 hours on and off to make work, probably should have followed the instructions rather than mess about trying shit on my own. but oh well.

Really the process breaks down into several stages and I found several things terrbly annoying.

1. no one tells you there are things out of the old case that you need. the GBA metal grille, the stylus holder, the GBA cover and all the screws. AND, the little metal collar that protects the top half ribbon cable and acts as a guide for the hinge.

2. there are no instructions on what to do with the switches. Do make sure youre trying to put the power slider switch in the power slider hole, or it all goes terribly wrong and you nearly bust it trying to get it in. I realised just in time and stopped trying. but I bet people will break it.

3. the top half case back, is held in with screws, but its a slide and lift. not a simple pop off. if you try to pop it off, youll break or bend the tracks and cant get the fucker back on.

4. the microphone cable is exceptionally difficult and very very fragile. handle with care or youll be trying to resolder it on as I had to. the micrphone is the size of a watch battery and a fiddly little bugger at the best of times. I still havent tested it.

5. as with any small electronic device. everything has its place. if you get it wrong it wont go back together, leading ot hours of frustration whilt eh case stubbornly refuses.

6. You cant test the bastard til its all back together, unles you try a very complicated maneuver holding the battery against the electrodes. So you dont know if yove done it right til its all screwed in. at which point, if it doesn work, its al got to come apart again. I had to do this, because my top screen ribbon wasnt in properly. again, no one tells you what will happen if this occurs, so I had to fault find it myself and got lucky off a forum post about a completley different issue.


anyway. 4 hours later, Its done. I'll take a pic.