I've been putting this off for too long. The DS Lite was the first device I ever attempted to fix by myself, and it went... poorly. I just ended up breaking it further, and putting it in a box for 10 years.
It's time to take 10 years of gained electronics experience and revisit my first, and bring it back into action. My childhood has officially become "retro gaming" - we all reach that point eventually.
For those looking to repair a device that has similar issues to mine, here's what you need to know:
The DS Lite has been around for a long time, and the board has been thoroughly reverse engineered. If you take the codename of the board (should be written just under the battery holder) you can find full scans and more importantly schematics of the board. This is how I identified fuses F1 and F2, and I was lucky that I found the problem right away.
I needed to get the parts quickly to make it in time to publish the video, and I wanted to order them from the same place. The fuse is luckily a pretty standard part, searching online told me that I needed a 0.5 fast-acting fuse, and I could see that the package was an 0603. This is what I ended up using: https://www.tme.eu/en/details/mfu0603ff00500p500/0603-smd-fuses-ultra-fast/vishay/
It fits the bill, 32V max, 0.5A, fast acting. However one thing I didn't check was the resistance of the fuse, and since the old one was blown, I couldn't check it against that one either. If I would do this again I would perhaps look for one with a slightly lower resistance, as I did notice some voltage sag once I started using a rumble pack (coming up in a future video) that caused the green LED to go red while it was rumbling. But this could also be caused by the aftermarket battery, not sure.
For the connector, here's what I used: https://www.tme.eu/en/details/mx-505110-0492/connectors-ffc-fpc-0-5mm/molex/505110-0492/
This absolutely did not fit but it was the one I could get hold of the fastest. There's a lot of space on the board and in the case around this location, and it uses the same pin pitch, so the pins lined up just fine. As you see in the video I did need to make some new pads for the expanded size of the connector, again I was lucky that there was nothing around the connector.
If you're going to do this... Just do it the right way. While I do like having a much more robust connector, it doesn't just break while the device is assembled. This connector breaks so easily while being repaired that most game console repair stores stock the right part, so there's no guesswork.
And finally, top tip if you're planning on putting your device into a transparent case... wear gloves. Wash the case thoroughly, and keep those gloves on, or you'll be staring at your greasy fingerprints left on the inside of the case every time you use it.
Now the DS is back up and running, I'm not done there! Next week I'll be modding it to include some creature comforts we expect in 2026, that just didn't exist when this console was released 20 years prior.