DS lite built in bluetooth

tl;dr

After building the iPod with Bluetooth I thought I could probably do the same with the ds lite. There was a catch tho I would need a way to make the DS Lite think its got headphones in the headphone socket so it would shut off the internal speakers. Join me below to see how I pulled it off.

Hardware

• Bluetooth 5.0 USB dongle
• 0.25mm/30AWG solid core enamel wire
• SMD solid state relay
• 1k resistor

So my first thing to work out was how to make the DS think that headphones are inserted, I used my multi meter to beep out the pins on the headphone jack with and without headphones inserted to see what changed. I found that when no headphones were inserted pins 4 and 5 were connected and when headphones were inserted pins 4 and 5 became disconnected. My first thought was to use a transistor but that didn’t work. I was talking with someone else that was doing a similar thing with Bluetooth and they suggested to using a solid stat relay. I found this tiny SMD one on aliexpress and ordered it to see if it would work, It totally did the trick. My thinking was to cut the trace on pin 5 of the headphone jack, the relay would be open when when un-powered and closed when powered. I needed a switch that would in one position power the relay then in the other position power the bluetooth dongle. That way the internal speakers would be on when the bluetooth dongle was off and off when the bluetooth dongle was on. I did this with a 3 pin switch and put the 3.3v to the center leg. The relay was drawing too much power and ran hot at first so I put a 1k resistor in front of it and that sorted it out.

Wiring diagram

Above I’ve shown you how you would wire up the Bluetooth dongle, relay and switch. You will need to take the 3.5mm headphone jack and the button off the dongle and chop down the USB port to get it to fit under the WiFi adapter. The WiFi board on the DS Lite will also need to be modified to create a gap for the dongle to fit under, You will need to remove the shielding on the underside of the WiFi board, Just clip the 4 corners and the shield should just come off.

Shell cuts

The only shell modification you need to make is to cut away the plastic around the lanyard strap, and cut the middle out of the lanyard strap hole in the side of the shell. If you put the switch in so the pins are facing down it will fit perfectly, I forgot to do that when hot gluing it into place so don’t be like me.

The bluetooth dongle will be going under the wifi board so you will need to remove the metal cage off the bottom of it. All you need to do is clip the tabs at each corner and it will come off. Don’t forget to put kaptop tape around the dongle so it doesn’t short out when in use.

Video