Hacking Creating a North American, non-XL New 3DS

[cearp]

Here's my question: If desoldering and resoldering the NAND is all it takes, then couldn't I simply find a soldering tutorial, buy the materials, and I'm good?

if you need a tutorial for soldering, then i think that you are not experienced enough to desolder and resolder nand, i'm sure it is a very difficult and delicate procedure you will need a lot of practice to get to that ability, i think

 

[Scarftail]

if you need a tutorial for soldering, then i think that you are not experienced enough to desolder and resolder nand, i'm sure it is a very difficult and delicate procedure you will need a lot of practice to get to that ability, i think

I have spare GBA motherboards to practice on (even though that's probably not enough). In any case, my point is, would it work?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I have spare GBA motherboards to practice on (even though that's probably not enough). In any case, my point is, would it work?

You'd be better off finding (and probably paying) someone else to do it. It would take years to learn, not to mention a good deal of special equipment.

Besides, we've pretty much concluded that doing it via hardware is, if not impossible, not feasible.

 

[Gadorach]

You'd be better off finding (and probably paying) someone else to do it. It would take years to learn, not to mention a good deal of special equipment.

Besides, we've pretty much concluded that doing it via hardware is, if not impossible, not feasible.

To be more specific, the hardware is usually ~$1200.00 shipped for the rework station alone, if you're going professional with dark-infrared for example. After that, you need the right solder balls, flux, and stencils. Not to mention a, preferably, small hot-air wand for handling the reballing itself before reflowing the chips back onto the boards. All that usually comes to another $600.00-$800.00, bringing you up to ~$2000.00 just to get started. Next, you need a good year or so of experience before you even attempt professional reworking as a business, as 70%+ of the time, you'll end up popcorning the chips you're lifting while you get used to the quirks of your station/probes, which means destroying the chips.

TL;DR - Reworking is expensive and really hard, get someone else to do it.

 

[gamesquest1]

To be more specific, the hardware is usually ~$1200.00 shipped for the rework station alone, if you're going professional with dark-infrared for example. After that, you need the right solder balls, flux, and stencils. Not to mention a, preferably, small hot-air wand for handling the reballing itself before reflowing the chips back onto the boards. All that usually comes to another $600.00-$800.00, bringing you up to ~$2000.00 just to get started. Next, you need a good year or so of experience before you even attempt professional reworking as a business, as 70%+ of the time, you'll end up popcorning the chips you're lifting while you get used to the quirks of your station/probes, which means destroying the chips.

TL;DR - Reworking is expensive and really hard, get someone else to do it.

I sometime regret bringing up theoretical situations such as cpu/NAND swapping in general threads where people don't really know what it entails....seems I didn't word it strongly enough that this would be a very extreme measure to go to for the sake of getting a US normal N3ds

 

[tony_2018]

desoldering doesn't require instructions, it requires skills, a steady hand and a magnifying glass. GL.

 

[omgcat]

I sometime regret bringing up theoretical situations such as cpu/NAND swapping in general threads where people don't really know what it entails....seems I didn't word it strongly enough that this would be a very extreme measure to go to for the sake of getting a US normal N3ds

seriously man, i did reflow/reball for 360/ps3's back in highschool and that was hard enough but swapping CPU/nand is making my head spin.

 

[tony_2018]

seriously man, i did reflow/reball for 360/ps3's back in highschool and that was hard enough but swapping CPU/nand is making my head spin.

You're talking about the oven trick?

 

[Gadorach]

I sometime regret bringing up theoretical situations such as cpu/NAND swapping in general threads where people don't really know what it entails....seems I didn't word it strongly enough that this would be a very extreme measure to go to for the sake of getting a US normal N3ds

I sometimes regret getting into the BGA reworking business myself, but oh well, shit happens, ha ha. Honestly though, I think the 3DS/N3DS uses 0.4mm solder balls for pretty much everything, which isn't all that bad to reball in my experience. It's not that hard when you have the experience, but yes, it's still totally infeasible for the regular crowd.

 

[omgcat]

You're talking about the oven trick?

no, reworked the solder joints.

 

[tony_2018]

I sometimes regret getting into the BGA reworking business myself, but oh well, shit happens, ha ha. Honestly though, I think the 3DS/N3DS uses 0.4mm solder balls for pretty much everything, which isn't all that bad to reball in my experience. It's not that hard when you have the experience, but yes, it's still totally infeasible for the regular crowd.

Its possible but requires patience and steady had. The soldering Iron I used had an adjustable temp and a fine tip. Good wet sponge, a table mount magnifying glass and I was good to go.

 

[tony_2018]

no, reworked the solder joints.

Than instructions wouldn't be needed. You should already know what you need to do.

 

[Gadorach]

seriously man, i did reflow/reball for 360/ps3's back in highschool and that was hard enough but swapping CPU/nand is making my head spin.

The PS3/Xbox 360 both use 0.6mm solder balls, which are much easier to work with. Reballing with 0.4-0.2mm solder balls is a whole different ball game, ha ha.

 

[omgcat]

The PS3/Xbox 360 both use 0.6mm solder balls, which are much easier to work with. Reballing with 0.4-0.2mm solder balls is a whole different ball game, ha ha.

yeah, .6 was a pain, but i made so much cash during the RROD crisis when halo 3 came out.

 

[omgcat]

Than instructions wouldn't be needed. You should already know what you need to do.

i'm fine with my MMXL i have larger hands. would think about it for my GF though, she's 4' 9" with tiny hands.

 

[gamesquest1]

seriously man, i did reflow/reball for 360/ps3's back in highschool and that was hard enough but swapping CPU/nand is making my head spin.

Yeah reballing is more a professional trade, it's not something a random temper would just decide to do for a project, it involves quite a fair bit of practice and quite a bit of an investment to even get the equipment for such a task........I really said it joking initially as that really is currently the only way you could get a US standard n3ds........but once there is hacks available for the n3ds that allows the decryption of the NAND it would theoretically be as simple as decrypting your NAND, replacing the secureinfo_a file and overwriting the original NAND with the rebuild! I think for average users that is the more realistic route

 

[Wowfunhappy]

TL;DR - Reworking is expensive and really hard, get someone else to do it.

All of that said, if anyone here really does have the skills and equipment for something like this, they should speak up! You could probably make a little size business out of something like this, at least until someone figures out a software method. There's more customers than just GBATemp—a LOT of people on Neogaf, for example, would probably jump at the opportunity to get an american N3DS made for them.

 

[Gadorach]

yeah, .6 was a pain, but i made so much cash during the RROD crisis when halo 3 came out.

Most of mine came in when the RGH became popular. Past reballing old Xenons and Zephyrs for the JTAG hack, I did mostly DVD-ROM Flashing when I was in high school. Good times, but things are more complicated now, doing it as a subcontractor for local businesses, on all kinds of random shit.

All of that said, if anyone here really does have the skills and equipment for something like this, they should speak up! You could probably make a little size business out of something like this, at least until someone figures out a software method. There's more customers than just GBATemp—a LOT of people on Neogaf, for example, would probably jump at the opportunity to get an american N3DS made for them.

I can do it, but I don't need the business anymore. I'm busy enough as it is. I contract to 5 businesses in my area, and I pretty much never have time for anything else anymore. At most, I'd do it for friends, but there's plenty of people out there that would be willing to do it if presented. Look for cell phone repair places if you're desperate. They usually have the talent on call at minimum.

 

[endoverend]

Yeah rebelling is more a professional trade, it's not something a random temper would just decide to do for a project, it involves quite a fair bit of practice and quite a bit of an investment to even get the equipment for such a task........I really said it joking initially as that really is currently the only way you could get a US standard n3ds........but once there is hacked available for the n3ds that allows the decryption of the NAND it would theoretically be as simple as decrypting your NAND, replacing the secureinfo_a file and overwriting the original NAND with the rebuild! I think for average users that is the more realistic route

So once GW comes out with N3DS support, we could dump the xorpads (with rxTools) and then region changing would be possible...

 

[gamesquest1]

So once GW comes out with N3DS support, we could dump the xorpads (with rxTools) and then region changing would be possible...

Well any tools would probably have to be reworked for whatever the new exploit is......but in theory yeah, once we have a tool like rxtools that works on the n3ds, and assuming there isn't any sort of new checks in place it should be fairly simple