does anyone have any experience with 3ds hardware maintenance? my n3dsxl's cartridge slot is being inconsistent, especially with ds cartridges. i want to restart my soulsilver cart and i can't really confidently do it if it won't recognize the cart is there more than every ten tries or so. maybe the pins are just bent?
@typhlosion
My first idea would be to try contact cleaner, but if you've inserted a cart that much that should've worn off any corrosion or tarnishing…
I would still probably try compressed air to clean it and then try and scrub with isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip. If that doesn't help then yeah, the best bet is to try to just get a look at the pins and see if there's anything obviously wrong (perhaps it has a microswitch to detect if a cartridge is inserted and its contacts need cleaning?)
@nytpu okay... i shone a flashlight in there and there didn't seem to be anything obviously awry with the pins. the 3ds seems to see the cart pretty consistently when i turn the console on with it inserted, it's mostly just when i remove and reinsert it that it sometimes fails to see it. so i'm wondering if the mechanism to detect insertion of a cart is going marginal. i can't disassemble the thing any further right now because i'm missing my really tiny screwdrivers
@typhlosion with the DS I used to have a bit of paper folded on itself once or twice to insert with the cart to ensure it was stable. It was a thing with flashcarts having slightly thinner plastic and being picky. Might help with a 3DS too
@sugar i tried that and it didn't seem to help
@typhlosion more likely to be corrosion than bent, and are you sure it's not the cartridges? we've had to clean most of our ds carts once or twice (IPA and a little mechanical scrubbing with a q-tip works)
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@Hearth the 3ds seems to see the cart pretty consistently when i turn the console on with it inserted, it's mostly just when i remove and reinsert it that it sometimes fails to see it. so i'm wondering if the mechanism to detect insertion of a cart is going marginal
@typhlosion that would make sense, yeah
probably a switch in there that needs replacing, switches never do last more than a few tens of thousands of actuations
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@Hearth that sounds like a finickier operation than i know how to do... maybe i'll take it to a shop
@typhlosion if that's what it is, it is almost certainly finickier than we would be comfortable doing, yeah
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@Hearth it looks like there are replacement cartridge slot modules available to purchase online (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Reader-Module-Replacement-Compatible-Nintendo/dp/B089K9LTLF) that don't appear to require soldering to install... if it gets really bad maybe i'll consider that
@typhlosion oh, the whole thing's a little replaceable module with what looks like a standard mezzanine connector on there, that's neat
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@typhlosion well, not standard, but off-the-shelf, we've definitely seen those before. i think samtec makes them
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@Hearth i will say it's kind of cool to even be able to consider doing this stuff myself, back when i first got these consoles it didnt even cross my mind that i'd be opening them up
i wonder how moddable the old fat ds is. i'd love to replace the screens in that thing someday if i can
@typhlosion i need to know about this as well. maybe it needs cleaning as well :X