Got a DS lite today, and after all that hype I cant get over how
the thing feels like its made up of paper mache... but, I did up some pics while I was working through it. (yeah, the plastic bit I used is a hack, but I just wanted to see if it would work)
dslite_cont_mod.zip - all of the images I took, labelled screw locations (feel free to use those images for whatever you'd like). Some advice: Pay attention to those pesky wires. Watch during dissassembly to see how the shoulder buttons go together properly. Really small jewelers flathead screwdriver also works on triwings.
I used: a triwing, a precision phillips (+), a pair of (sharp, small) scissors, some scotch tape, a slice of overhead projector film and tweezers to remove the rubber covering 2 phillips screws.
Basically, the DPad is 2 parts like any conventional controller, above is the plastic part you see from the outside along with a bit of overhead projection plastic I had around (the red marked area is the part that comes in contact with the rubber and needs to be a bit thicker to improve response, the blue part is the part that gives you a "roll" feel on the control). As with the PSP, adding this improved response drastically - though just one thin sheet of plastic is not quite enough to make it perfect on a b/n machine (as with the PSP). A couple additional layers of scotch tape on the red circles was enough to fix that for me at least. I suppose rounding the center stub shorter would also have a very helpful effect on the ability to hit diagonals, but for the time being I have not tried it.
Indeed, after some use the center nub will wear down some, and the extra thin rubber they use under the keys will also wear in/out. I suspect in a year or so the DPad is going to be a higher failure rate item than the hinges on the cheap plastic case they made
I personally dont encourage anyone to take this Lite machine apart. The plastic sucks and the way it is put together makes it easy to break stuff. Luckily the DS I was checking out is new, so the plastic hasnt had a chance to get brittle yet.
On a side note, my buttons worked only OK on the diagonal, now they work
great.