Hacking Shoulder Buttons

[Wolvenreign]

Me and my buddy love our DS Lites. We play them day and night, year after year, loving all their dual-screened goodness. There's just one problem; we always have to send them off to Nintendo after a year for the same problem. The freakin' shoulder buttons.

I know this problem is infamous among DS Lites, but the quality of the shoulder buttons seems to be poor on purpose. Surely it isn't that hard to make shoulder buttons that last longer than a year.

With that in mind, I have come to ask you, fellow Templars; is there any way to replace the stock shoulder buttons with something much sturdier? I'm tired of spending 80 dollars a year like some kind of subscription.

 

[gameboy13]

My "L" button was unresponsive one time. I was told to blow in the crack of the button, and it fixed it! Try that before sending it in next time.

 

[EpicJungle]

My "L" button was unresponsive one time. I was told to blow in the crack of the button, and it fixed it! Try that before sending it in next time.

I broke my DS' top screen that way (moisture of breath).

 

[gameboy13]

I was kinda scared of that too, but it's worth a try if you are going to pay $80 for repairs anyway.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

By brother had his DS lite since the day it was released, I bought it from him, we both take care of it well.

I havnt had a button break on it at all. If people took care of their things, there wouldn't be this many breakage threads.

 

[gameboy13]

Well, the shoulder buttons on the Lite are crappy anyway.

 

[evandixon]

Well, the shoulder buttons on the Lite are crappy anyway.

Those on the DSi are worse. The buttons on my DS lite still work fine after years, but my DSi needed them fixed, and now they are on the verge of breaking again.

 

[gameboy13]

Hmm, I have always found DSi buttons to be really sturdy and "clicky." Kinda deceptive, huh?

 

[spark1223]

I've had two broken mics... probably related to my headset tho.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

Blowing the dust out from between the contacts with canned air always helps

 

[Wolvenreign]

We're both somewhat careful with it, and have never dropped it or anything of the sort.

I really don't want to open up the DS again. I tried it once to replace the DS buttons myself, but I ended up having it packed away, waiting for two weeks for the arrival of the special screwdriver, then not bothering to fix it, then waiting for a couple of months before trying anything only to have the fix fail.

Are there absolutely no custom shoulder buttons out there designed to be more sturdy?

 

[dark ajax]

I still have my good old DS and it still works (kinda) fine. That's actually surprising cuz i'm a little clumsy and have dropped it SEVERAL times, anyways the only buttons i've ever had problems with are the L & R, by the way my R button stopped working for a loooooooong time untill i watched this silly youtube video showing how to fix it by blowing a little and giving the DS some small hits it worked and that's what i do now to fix it (yeah i should get a new DS)...