One of my friends had accindentally dropped their Nintendo DS on the floor. The shell didn't survive the fall at all, and my friend was going to throw the remnants in the bin. I offered to take the parts myself instead. After receiving the remnants of the console, I tested it for signs of life. All the electronics seemed to still function just fine!
So, it was disassembly time. I followed the various guides available on iFixit.
There was not much left to save of the original shell:
Here's how the original Nintendo DS mainboard looks from the button side:
And here's the underside of the mainboard:
I was initially worried about these markings on the ribbon cable of the bottom screen. However, that turned out to just be black marker.
Here's the bottom screen unit:
The top screen unit is similar but has more ribbon cables:
After ordering a replacement shell from China, it was just a matter of putting everything back together. I reused one unbroken hinge cover and the pink Nintendo sticker from the original shell to give the now black console some pink highlights:
The replacement shell wasn't very good, and I had to file/carve the shoulder button cavities to make them not bind when pressing the shoulder buttons. But still, the end result was a fully functional console!
This post was retroactively compiled on 2024-01-04 from photos in my photo library.