HDR/DS_Power_LED_Swap.md

## DS_Power_LED_Swap.md

      
    Raw
  

              DS_Power_LED_Swap.md
            
          
    Welcome to a quick and simple guide on replacing the power LED on a DS Lite.

Please note that i am not responsible for any damage caused to your consoles while following this guide, do this at your own risk.

What you will need:


A soldering iron (Irons with smaller tips are better)
Tweezers
Any color of 0603 SMD LEDs
A solder wick will help in cleaning up some solder.
Some patience
This is for the main power LED only.

Guide:

Step 1: Strip down the unit and locate the LEDs.

At the front of your board in the top right corner you will see 3 LEDs (Pictured below)

The top right LED is the main power LED this is the one we will replace in this guide.
Step 2: Removing the LED.

You can remove the LED in two ways, if your soldering iron tip is small enough you can simply de-solder it (another easy way is to use enough solder to flood the led), however if you're unable to do that you can gently pull the LED off with a pair of tweezers (the original LED will be ruined if you do this), this will leave the pads of the LED behind, all you have to do to remove those is heat up the solder with your soldering iron and they should come right off.
The board should now look like this.

Step 3: Re-soldering the new LED.

This is the step that will require some patience, if you look at the LED you're soldering to the board, it should have a small indicator on the back, that looks something like one of these.

you will need to match this indicator with the white diode symbol below the LEDs, if you solder it the wrong way around, you will have to remove the LED and start over.

If you have a multimeter with a diode tester, you can use that to easily verify if the lED is oriented correctly.
Now to the actual soldering, keep the LED in place with a tweezer while you start soldering one side of the LED, if the LED is a little crooked that's fine.

now solder the other side of the LED, and clean up any leftover blobs of solder with your iron or your solder wick.
Step 4: Testing.

At this stage you can hold the battery in place and power the unit on, if you soldered the LED correctly it should light up.

If your LED does not light up, you either have the LED soldered the wrong way around, or it's not soldered properly.
Step 5: Assembly.

Assuming everything went like it should you can now re-assemble the unit and enjoy your new LED.
Before and After

Before

After