My Nintendo 3DS USB C Charger Mod
If you (like me) are tired of carrying a different charger for your 3DS all the time, then this mod will show you how you can add a USB C port to your Nintendo 3DS.
Yes, I could buy a USB A to Nintendo 3DS charging cable (and I did), but thats still an extra cable to carry around when you’re travelling. These days a single USB C cable can charge your iPad, MacBook, headphones etc and many other devices, so it makes sense to bring your 3DS into the USB C world.
One dealbreaker for me with this mod was that the 3DS would have to charge via USB C to USB C cable, and it would have to benefit from being able to charge at any voltage or wattage. This is because even if the cable is USB C, you only want to carry one charging brick that goes into the wall. The Adafruit USB C breakout board has all the necessary resistors in order to handle both USB C to USB C cables, and high wattage power bricks.
This is my power brick, it comes at a great price, has international wall adapters, and can power a MacBook Pro or Nintendo Switch.
You can follow the same process for any style of Nintendo 3DS as they all charge the same. If you pick a 3DS XL, or N3DS there’ll be more space for you inside so you don’t need to remove the headphone jack like I had to.
If you’re more of a visual learner feel free to check out my video here.
Here’s what you’ll need to start:
- Soldering Iron (here’s what I used. It came with all the necessary matierals except wire and flux)
- Flux
- Wiring
- Desoldering Wick
- Solder
- Adafruit USB C Breakout Board
- Nintendo 3DS (I hope thats obvious)
- Dremel tool (to make a new hole for your USB C port to stick out of)
- Sugru glue (if you need to smooth over old charging ports or neaten up your new port)
- Screwdriver (about the side of a sunglasses repair kit)
Step by step process:
- Power off your Nintendo 3DS, remove the game cartridge, stylus and SD card.
- Remove these 4 screws at the top of the back case
3. Lift the back case off, remove the battery (in blue below), and remove the next set of 11 screws coloured below in red
4. Lift the back cover off, from the bottom upwards. Be careful, there are two ribbon cables connected to the undercarriage to the motherboard of the 3DS. The ribbon cables can be popped off off with a spudger, or with a gentle screwdriver flick.
5. This is the tricky part. You want to desolder the existing charging port and the headphone jack too (both circled in red). You can watch my YouTube video here for more info on how this works, or check out some other guides like this one.
6. Effectively you want to rub a small amount of solder around all 6 of the ports connecting these units to the motherboard, then slowly and carefully tap your soldering iron on each of the connecting solder points, heating them up until you can start to slowly tug and pull each unit off the board. It will take some time, but be patient and keep moving from each point that connects them to the board. You’ll start to feel them become looser and looser. Never pull or yank these off the board, as they can damage your motherboard.
The charging port has 6 points where it solders to the motherboard. The headphone jack has 5 (2 on the left side, 3 on the right side). Check out some other YouTube videos like this one if you need more help removing the solder points.
Once these are are off the motherboard, thats the hard part done! You can rub some desoldering wick with your soldering iron above it to take any excess solder off the motherboard.
7. Your next step is to take your USB C breakout board and solder 2x wires: 1x to the the ground (GND) pin/hole, and 1x to the VBUS (5v) pin/hole.
On the Adafruit USB C breakout board you can see these ports have been conveniently labelled.
The far right pin is for Ground, and the second from the left pin is VBUS.
The small resistors in the green circle are actually the resistors that will allow this port to handle C to C charging, and will also help by stepping down the voltage from high wattage power bricks. This means that you only have to worry about carrying 1x power brick when travelling, and can pretty much plug you’re 3DS in to anything (that I’m aware of).
Once soldered, your breakout board will look like this below:
Ideally you want to use different coloured wires so you don’t get confused which wire goes where. I was too lazy and cheap, so I used the same colour wire. Just remember which wire goes where.
8. Now on the 3DS motherboard, here’s how you want to connect your breakout board to your 3DS:
Out of the two middle ports you want to solder GND to the left port, and VBUS to the right port. Nothing more, nothing less. Make sure these have a little bit of solder on the ports before you start, as this will make things easier for you. You can check my video to see how easy it is.
Right now your whole set up should look like the below.
Feel free to test if its working by connecting the port to the wall and seeing if you get an orange light. You won’t need the battery connected at this part, but be careful not to touch anything on the board thats exposed.
If it works, you’ll see this orange light!
9. Next we need to clean up the wiring and glue in the breakout board. I did experiment by putting a piece of anti static plastic in front of the board to avoid anything short circuiting, but you’ll probably be fine without this. In my experience this just let the board slide around a little and left it sitting wonky.
I placed the breakout board over where the headphone jack used to sit, but if you find somewhere better then let me know.
10. You want to route the wiring behind the cartridge slot at a right angle like above. It’s also worth taping the wire down so it doesn’t rattle and move around during its use.
11. Now comes another tricky part. You need to remove pieces of plastic from the back casing to make room for the breakout board. Start by removing the area in red that you can see I but out below:
This should sit as flat to the board as possible.
11. Next you want to make the headphone jack wider so it can accommodate the USB C port sticking outwards. I used a Dremel tool, but you can use a file it you want it more precise.
Now mine looks super messy, but thats ok. The case will straighten itself shut when you put the screws back in, and you can clean the hole with a file, or by moulding some Sugru around it to make it look nice and streamlined. You’ll have a better time moulding the Sugru around it once everything is closed and sealed up, so feel free to start putting the screws back in, and tighten the whole thing up.
Messy:
Clean (er):
12. Seal it all up, put the screws back in and play away!
It looks better in person, I swear. It looks flush and smooth and the Sugru hardens solid after 24 hours.
And thats it! Check that everything still works and you’re finished!
