BoxOfFeetI re-shelled another DS Lite.
tomkattI’m in awe of people who do this stuff. I’ve wrecked a DS Lite and a DSi XL trying to do reshells, I’m just not delicate or patient enough for the work.
Oh, it definitely takes a lot of patience. But I love it, the whole process is therapeutic. I love the precision of it.
I feel you. I felt that way doing some soldering for things like fixing my trackball (bad left mouse button replacement) and my microwave (blown thyristor, easy fix).
I’m just not really good with small stuff and delicate parts like ribbon cable and thin wires. My eyes are old (hello presbyopia), and my hands were never the steadiest, even when I was younger.
What trackball? I’ve been keeping my T-BB18 going for 20 years now, and it’s to the point I have to start 3D printing replacement parts for the rubber stuff that’s turning to goo.
It’s an Elecom Huge wired model. I’ve owned three, had two fail on me, both to left click double clicking on single touch. First time could have been a fluke and I replaced it, but the second failed inside of four months. I said hell with it, took it apart, desoldered the switch and replaced it with a Kailh GM2.0. Worked like a charm and it’s been fine since.
Ironically, my oldest Huge is still working fine. Apparently they were originally using Japanese Omron microswitches that were quality and seem to last forever (case in point, the oldest trackball is from 2019 and no issues). With the newer ones I bought, they apparently changed to using Chinese Omron switches of poor quality.
Sucks, but I have a few spare Kailhs laying around if any of the other buttons die now.
That is a big, beautiful beast! Wow. It’s ingrained in me that the trackball is for the thumb, so I’m not sure I could use it. But I am impressed by that behemoth.