Homebrew How hard is a shell swap on the "NEW" 2DS XL?

[Jjones]

I've been scouring ebay for some really cool metallic shells for my purple 2ds xl and was thinking about doing a shell swap, but I can't find a video anywhere showing how to replace the shell of the ds anywhere on the internet. Either some advice or a video link would be great, thanks!

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Personal opinion ahead:

The N2DSXL is the worst of all DS to disassemble. The upper LCD assembly is held together with a lot of strong adhesive. Easy to damage the very thin LCD which has no metal shield (you know: slim, light...)

Even opening the lower part of the shell is tricky; clicked together. I ripped off the plastic notch of the internal volume slider without even noticing (a part to pay attention to when opening). Did this last year and put it away since... It is a unit I got practically for free (paid only for the Mario Kart 7 license) with damaged upper screen. So I did the disassembly and broke the upper LCD to pieces. Granted, I wasn't careful since it was already busted.

Doing this without damage will require skill, something to carefully heat up the adhesive and a lot of patience.

Again, personal opinion:
I wouldn't open a working N2DSXL.


Good luck and have fun!

 

[Jjones]

Alrighty, thanks for the advice! @KleinesSinchen

 

[CoolMe]

What @KleinesSinchen said. The same goes for the other models as well, you need to be very careful. I wouldn't recommend it, just for a cosmetic change.

 

[nemwolf]

just don't, you will break it

 

[Jjones]

yeah, I'm hearing about a bunch of horror stories from people doing this, I've, of course; changed my mind lol. It's a bummer Nintendo makes it so difficult to change something like that especially since its much easier for switch (at least for the console it self not the joycons) to swap out and customize.

 

[Jayro]

I did a shell swap of a N3DS XL, and fucked up my home button and my amiibo reader. Any homebrew that doesn't use Start to exit results in me hard-rebooting the system. The 3 ribbons though... that's a nightmare. Roll them up tight and tape them. Then use pointy tweezers to get them through the hinge hole.