Finished - 3DS XL without top screen

[zeello]

Man I hope I don't jinx myself and the system bricks after an hour of play. (or combusts into flames)
It did seem to get a little hot above and to the right of the slider.. but the resistor is below that spot so it's probably nothing to worry about.

Anyway, these pics were taken with a Google Nexus front-facing camera, so excuse the quality:

the pic of the rear is outdated, since I have the tape under the battery cover now. Looks better.

- no top screen, speakers, cameras, or mic
- wifi enabled
- headphone jack works
- hinge holes covered with electrical tape (tape was cut to size/shape using scissors)
- stylus holder removed (to make room for wifi cable) and stylus slot covered with electrical tape
- screen brightness settings 3/5 and 4/5 both work. I have not tried other brightness settings.

How I did it:
- I inserted a resistor in the lower of the 2 screen connectors on the speaker flex cable. The resistor is currently fixed into the slot with electrical tape. The connectors are very small so I had to fit the resistor inside it using unconventional means.
- The resistor is 1.5k and half watt. It is the only resistor I attempted so I have no idea whether it really matters that the resistor is 1.5k or 1.3k or 1k, whether it is half watt or quarter watt, etc.

Edit: A clarification on how I fit everything:

orange = wifi antenna (the stylus holder must be removed)
purple = speaker flex cable
red = resistor

 

[brendanepic]

Why?

 

[arena slicer]

Why?

My Thoughts Exactly.

 

[TimeTravel_0]

Simply because he could.
How is that so hard to comprehend?

Great Job following through!
Even if something isn't beneficial, having the information is neat.
Wonderful work all around.

As for the resistor, you could always add Heatshrink tubing to it, would contain some of the heat as well as protect for shorts.

 

[Fluxedo]

Check the thread in the spams lot by the OP. He found a broken 3DS XL on eBay and did this. I think it's pretty neat.

 

[zharrhen]

my question is what do you do with it? i mean i haven't heard of a 3ds game that only uses the bottom screen. or a regular ds game for that matter.

 

[Abyss]

Definitely neat that it can be done, but yeah wouldn't you be a bit limited to just playing virtual console games?

 

[Fluxedo]

He could play Animal Crossing: New Leaf "hard mode"

 

[Prog]

I don't think VC supports bottom screen.
I guess it's better than a broken top screen, but I don't think it's very useful, unless someone used that to reverse-engineer the video signal to the top screen.

 

[zharrhen]

maybe a switchable screen? so for virtual console you can access the restore points and then switch to the game itself via a switch?

 

[grossaffe]

maybe a switchable screen? so for virtual console you can access the restore points and then switch to the game itself via a switch?

That sounds many orders of magnitude more complicated than removing the top screen and replacing it with a resistor.

 

[zharrhen]

my idea is to have the video output for both screens hooked to a switch that changes which one is given as the input to the screen. yes it would be harder to do, i do agree with that, but the result would be something that i really want to do to my system now that i came up with the idea.

 

[grossaffe]

my idea is to have the video output for both screens hooked to a switch that changes which one is given as the input to the screen. yes it would be harder to do, i do agree with that, but the result would be something that i really want to do to my system now that i came up with the idea.

Are we certain that both screens take the same signals?

 

[Kyosho]

I could see that working on a regular DS, but a 3DS? The screens aren't even in the same aspect ratio. One is 16:9, one is 4. I don't see it happening. And if you could get it to work, yay super-squished video?

I know there's only like one or two 3DS flash carts out there, and they work with trickery and aren't so straight forward. But does anyone know whether regular DS flashcarts can run homebrew that makes use of the actual 3DS chips? If so, you might be able to run some pretty good emulators on this thing, with the power it has. That's pretty much the only thing I can think of that it'd be super useful for. Otherwise, I would've just bought a replacement screen.

Anyways, good job on getting it to work. Just don't know what you'll do with it.

 

[Prog]

You could also find a 3DS XL with a broken bottom screen and Frankenstein them together.

 

[zeello]

by the way, isn't the shutdown screen supposed to say something about spotpass?
Well this is what mine says.. Nothing!

(Although it says "software closed" if a game was running.)

How peculiar..

edit: Though maybe a firmware update caused this and it has nothing to do with the top screen being attached or not. If so, nevermind, then.

 

[zeello]

The battery on this system runs out very quickly... Less than 2 hours. (I will time it when I get a chance) I thought the mod was somehow causing it but then I'm like, wait, maybe it's just the battery.

How much is a fresh battery? I could always decide to get one.

Is it really possible that the resistor causes the battery to be used up more quickly?

EDIT:
On a full charge I can play Mr. Driller (DSiware version) for only 1 hour 30 minutes, on screen brightness 3 and wearing headphones.
Definitely not normal.

 

[zeello]

Just a little update. I opened up the system again today, which I felt was very risky, but I wanted to see if I can reduce the rattling noises that occur when shaking the system.

I think I managed to reduce the rattling.. only slightly... turns out some if not all of the rattling is not related to the mod, it's just how the system was built. For example the dpad rattles and there is obviously nothing I can do about that. I speculate that the L/R button ribbon cables, the L/R buttons themselves, and the analog slider are other possible causes of noise. It's hard to figure out, oddly enough.

So anyway I closed up the system and everything still works.

While I was at it though, I decided to take a picture of the inside of the system. I will update the first post with this image.

 

[Frank]

I'm hoping it was already broken before the mod! Either way, good little mod/fix/not really sure what to consider this.

You should name it the Nintendo 3SS!

 

[zeello]

The system is not broken. I believe I can restore the system to its original state if I wanted to although I have no intention of doing this in the foreseeable future.

I cut the speaker ribbon cable down to size but this is part is inexpensive to replace. The mod doesn't require busting the system in any way, other than that one part.