Great effort dude 
those connectors are great! Goes to steal your idea lol
those connectors are great! Goes to steal your idea lol
Hey I have been trolling the 3DS Hacking forums for a few months and decided to finally pick up a 3DS XL. Naturally seeking out a new 2012 US model so I can benefit from having a earlier firmware. I picked one up from a local Target along with Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (because of the 4.5 update) and proceeded to dump the current nand (4.4) upgrade via game cart (4.5) then downgrade to 4.4 to see if all is well.
It all worked out perfect! I used some wrapping wire and a 8 pin IC socket cut in half.
It all worked out perfect! I used some wrapping wire and a 8 pin IC socket cut in half.
Although I really liked the solderless pogo-pin idea, to leave no trace of the mod on the motherboard, I haven't been able to source any suitable pins. Most I've found are much too long or wide.
Another problem is that the separation of the three pads for DAT0, CMD and CLK is 2 millimetres, but most perfboard comes with a pitch of 2.52 mm, so it wouldn't be possible to line up the pins.
I guess such an adapter could be professionally made, but it is out of reach to the average guy.
Another problem is that the separation of the three pads for DAT0, CMD and CLK is 2 millimetres, but most perfboard comes with a pitch of 2.52 mm, so it wouldn't be possible to line up the pins.
I guess such an adapter could be professionally made, but it is out of reach to the average guy.
Have you checked aliexpress.com? Ordered a batch of 100 pogo pins there for ~10 USD a few months ago, and while I agree they might be a tad bit too long, I'd say they're perfectly suitable. I did however opt this solution out, mostly because there's no really good way keep a pogo pin connector in place while reading/flashing, and personally I like to keep the number of non soldered connections down to a minimum, I at least imagine those are where the biggest potential for bad connections, and in extension corrupted data, lies.
You don't need perfboard, any non conductive, sturdy material would do. Just drill holes where you want them, and glue the pogo pins with cyanoacrylate or perhaps epoxy. It's only four connections, so it's not all that hard to get it right. If you really insist on soldering the pins in place, get some plain PCB laminate, and isolate each pin by cutting the copper layer
Thanks. I did look at aliexpress.com, but they all seem to be at least 16 mm long, whereas I was hoping for a solution which could be kept installed within the case, which has about 7 mm clearance. I don't believe the pins can be cut down to length, as the spring would fall out.
A couple of those on http://www.emulation.com/catalog/pogo/ look possible (6.93 and 7 mm long) but when looking at the drawings (SKT2216 and SKT3579) if I'm reading them right at their widest point they are 1.9 mm wide. Given that they need to be mounted 2 mm apart, I didn't trust my drilling skills to not have them accidentally touching each other!
The pogo pins that n1ghty used (http://gbatemp.net/threads/nand-flash-dump-3ds-xl.350668/page-8#post-4745007 and http://gbatemp.net/threads/nand-flash-dump-3ds-xl.350668/page-5#post-4734288) look ideal, but I don't know exactly what they are, other than they came from an old Xbox Xecuter modchip.
A couple of those on http://www.emulation.com/catalog/pogo/ look possible (6.93 and 7 mm long) but when looking at the drawings (SKT2216 and SKT3579) if I'm reading them right at their widest point they are 1.9 mm wide. Given that they need to be mounted 2 mm apart, I didn't trust my drilling skills to not have them accidentally touching each other!
The pogo pins that n1ghty used (http://gbatemp.net/threads/nand-flash-dump-3ds-xl.350668/page-8#post-4745007 and http://gbatemp.net/threads/nand-flash-dump-3ds-xl.350668/page-5#post-4734288) look ideal, but I don't know exactly what they are, other than they came from an old Xbox Xecuter modchip.
Ah, now I get what you want to do
Well, then it'll probably be hard to find something suitable. I've however seen hard disks using tiny pogo pins to connect the I/O head leads to the PCB. Perhaps you got some old hard drive you can salvage something usable from? Also, perhaps you can find smaller ones if you look specifically for surface mounted pins, as opposed to through hole ones.[edit] Came to think of old cell phones too, I've seen a few of those with pogo pins for the battery connection.
An idea; a few years ago I had a router that tended to overheat, so had to put a heatsink on the CPU. There was really no good way to mount it, so I had to improvise; mixed epoxy glue and extremely fine aluminum dust, to get some kind of glue/thermal compound hybrid, and glued the heat sink in place. If I remember it right, it was electrically conductive too, measured it out of curiosity. I assume you just want to be able to restore the 3DS to its unmodded state. Perhaps it would work to mix some suitable, easily soluble glue with aluminum dust, and glue the connections with it? With some luck, it would both be conductive enough to carry the signal, and easy to clean up without leaving any traces.
I've been searching around and found this https://solarbotics.com/product/pp8-40/
Those are really short small pogo pins.
Those are really short small pogo pins.
This doesn't solve the problem on how to get a connection to the outside without cutting into the case. I like your mod, btw, looks very clean.
I dont think the cable routing would pose a big problem. Finding room for the cable's connector under the battery cover, without cutting the case, could be harder though
Maybe you could use one of those really flat ribbon cables often used internally in electronics, where there are no real connectors on the cable, just contact tabs, and route it out through the battery compartment or something. Here's a pic, don't know what they're called in English.
Oh, and thanks!
maybe
why do youd ont make little cuts around those spots nobody sees it an u can create a little plug
I dont think the cable routing would pose a big problem. Finding room for the cable's connector under the battery cover, without cutting the case, could be harder though
why do youd ont make little cuts around those spots nobody sees it an u can create a little plug
Attachments
Those solarbotics pogo pins are 11.4 mm long, we need 7 mm long at most.
The very thin cables you're thinking of are called "Flexible flat cable" or FFC, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_flat_cable for example. They are very thin, but a little tricky to deal with (e.g. won't be able to directly solder them to the pogo pins).
However, FFC is not necessary, as the case is flexible enough to have "normal" thin cables going into the battery compartment. For example, I used four cables stripped off a 80-way IDE cable. By the way, older 40-way IDE cables, and floppy disk cables, are thicker, so I wouldn't recommend those.
The very thin cables you're thinking of are called "Flexible flat cable" or FFC, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_flat_cable for example. They are very thin, but a little tricky to deal with (e.g. won't be able to directly solder them to the pogo pins).
However, FFC is not necessary, as the case is flexible enough to have "normal" thin cables going into the battery compartment. For example, I used four cables stripped off a 80-way IDE cable. By the way, older 40-way IDE cables, and floppy disk cables, are thicker, so I wouldn't recommend those.
Ah, it was that simple, we call them "FFC-kabel" in Swedish. Had no idea what the abbrevation stood for though, you always learn something new
Well, you'd probably want some kind of circuit board to keep the pogo pins in place above the test points anyways, so you could just put a FFC connector on it too.
Yeah, imagined routing the cable itself would be no problem at all, but isn't finding room for a proper connector under the battery cover a different story?
I bought a micro usb female connector that will take a little while to arrive, I'm going to see if I cant trim down the area to screw it in and stash it somewhere.
Then I plan to modify a micro usb cable to be micro usb to Sdcard(the micro to sd thing people have been using) and plug that into an sd card reader.
If that sounds to complicated the sd card reader I actually use with my camera and I have a micro to sd adapter already so I'm just using whats lying around except for the micro female thing I ordered from amazon for cheap.
Then I plan to modify a micro usb cable to be micro usb to Sdcard(the micro to sd thing people have been using) and plug that into an sd card reader.
If that sounds to complicated the sd card reader I actually use with my camera and I have a micro to sd adapter already so I'm just using whats lying around except for the micro female thing I ordered from amazon for cheap.
I guess that's a good question, though...
Aren't MicroSD to USB adapters just a few pins switched around?
Could you just make it directly Pinout on the XL -> USB?
Nope, it's not that easy, there's some other electronics too (USB peripheral controller, etc).
There are however really tiny USB Micro SD readers, small enough to find room for inside the 3DS XL. However, even though it would be elegant to just connect the 3DS with a plain USB cable, I really don't see any practical point. Personally I'd say it's better to keep as much as possible on the outside
Exactly, I'm confident in using a
DS --> micro usb female
and then cutting a Usb cable and connecting them to a micro -> sd adapter will work with a sd reader as I'm just borrowing the connections with the USB parts not doing any usb things with them.
DS --> micro usb female
and then cutting a Usb cable and connecting them to a micro -> sd adapter will work with a sd reader as I'm just borrowing the connections with the USB parts not doing any usb things with them.
I just did my mod. Haven't received the usb female port yet.
I looked at all my wiring and everything seems to be wired correctly, I get this error :
00F800FE 00000000 00000000 00000400 00000000
The code from page 10 says this:
CMD is connected to CLK. (Other DAT lines may be connected to this aswell, no way to tell)
I Also read on another page that someone was able to read with this but not write, I have 5-1-0-11U firmware so I'm doing this as a proactive step and just cause I like these things. So do I need to fix this or was the backup good and is there a way to tell? 943mb 3 backups md3 checks were all the same.
I know my soldering is horrible, doing the best with what I have. here are results
I looked at all my wiring and everything seems to be wired correctly, I get this error :
00F800FE 00000000 00000000 00000400 00000000
The code from page 10 says this:
CMD is connected to CLK. (Other DAT lines may be connected to this aswell, no way to tell)
I Also read on another page that someone was able to read with this but not write, I have 5-1-0-11U firmware so I'm doing this as a proactive step and just cause I like these things. So do I need to fix this or was the backup good and is there a way to tell? 943mb 3 backups md3 checks were all the same.
I know my soldering is horrible, doing the best with what I have. here are results
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