I did it again... I bought another DS console, bringing my collection to 2 DSi XLs, 1 DSi, 1 2DS, and 2 DS lites. I know I need to stop, but I couldn't help it when I saw this $20 DS lite.
Sure, it may have had years of grime and a nasty crust all over it, but I thought it was cleanable. It looked much more yellow in real life, but these photos were the best I could do.
I started cleaning by completely taking the DS lite apart. (btw like my workstation? Just a wooden board on a floor with parts all over. Totally a great way not to loose all my screws)
It smelled awful. It was like old food had been left inside to rot, and perfume was added to make the smell go away. Yuck! The individual parts reflected the smell quite well.
Absolutely disgusting. How do these consoles fall into this state? Oh well, at least it's in good hands now.
I started my cleaning with the DS stylus thing. It appeared like there was a bug living in there at one point. Pulling the web like substance out was not very pleasant. Thankfully it wasn't hard to remove, and all the grime came off with a single swab of alcohol.
Next I started the back panel. Dear god. The yellow-orange stuff was sticky and smelly. I don't know what it smelled like but it was just bad. I think that's enough. I doused the plate in more alcohol and eventually it came off... in gross flakes. In the end it looked pretty nice. Well worth the cleaning.
Next up, the screen. This was awful to clean. The crust came off okay, it was more below the crust that was a problem. The screen must've been covered in grease, because every time I cleaned it and wiped it down I just got shiny streaks all over. I went through 3 or so cotton swabs before it went away. Once clean I had a nice mirror.
I did some of the other parts and then I finished the top bottom part. This one had dirt/grease/finger juices soaked into it. When I put alcohol on it, it immediately turned a brownish grey color. I had to soak it for a few minutes before it would all come off. Rinsed it off and had another nice part.
The rest of the console was pretty boring. The hinges had a lot of dust but that came out with some compressed air. I put it back together and...
Wow that looks nice. The screens are dirty again from me assembling the console, but they'll be good after I wipe them with a cloth. The console has turned from a white-yellow color to a nice warm white. The one hinge part could use some retrobriting, but other than that I'm pretty happy with it. $20 bucks and a couple hours of cleaning got me this beauty. Normally I'd have to pay $60 to $80, so I'd say I got off pretty well.
A new DS lite means a new WiFi card, so I installed the other prototype firmware on my "bad" WiFi card (the proto firmware seems to permanently break wireless communications, so I am only going to use one card for that). I found out that it works, so woohoo. I wrote a guide on installing it and maybe I'll share it in the DS section. Or maybe not in case some idiots try it and brick their consoles. Easy to fix a bad flash, but still upsetting when people mess things up.
Okay, that's all. I should probably stop buying consoles, but it's so fun! There was another bad $20 DS lite and I'm trying my hardest not to save it. Maybe I'll cave and clean that one too lol
