I love to play my Nintendo DS.  Unfortunately, the power in it can't last forever and you can't always recharge it when you're in a place like an airport terminal or on a bus.  That's why I decided to make a tutorial on making a DS charger that works with your USB connector on a laptop.  Using this tutorial, you'll then be able to charge your DS anywhere!

The first thing you'll need to do is find a DS power adapter for a spare.  I bought one from The Exchange in Squirrel Hill for $4.  In addition to having a lot of stuff like this, they also carry old videogames going all the way back to the Sega Master System.  I usually get my vintage games from there and it's nice to have a place like this in the neighborhood, so please support them!

A little note about the power adapter...the original DS (released circa 2004) has a different power connector compared to the one on the DS Lite.  You have to make sure you get the right one, or else it wont fit into your DS!  Also, a handy tip...the adapter for the Gameboy Advance SP (model number AGS-002) will work on the original DS.  If you use this one, you can charge both a DS and a Gameboy Advance via USB.  This is a picture of the end for the Advance SP/DS original version:

The power cable for the DS-i is a bit different from the one for the Lite or the original Launch version.  You can try doing this with the DS-i but I can't guarantee you if it will work.

The only other items you need are a USB cable and some electrical tape.  Optionally, you can also use some heatshrink tubing for extra wire protection.

First, take your DS cable and cut the plug off the end.

Once you make the cut, grab your USB cable and cut the 'A' (rectangluar) end off of the cable.

Once you've cut the two cables, strip the red and black wires in the USB cable and the inner core wire of the DS power plug.  Twist the braided wire of the DS cable into one large cable. Get your helping hands and put the ends to be spliced into the pinchers.

The first thing you want to do is slide a piece of heatshrink tubing over  the inner core wire of the DS plug.  Tin and solder the inner core wire and the black wire of the USB plug together like this:

Next up, slide the heatshrink tubing over the black wire and the braided wire, heating it up.

The next step is to do the same thing with the inner core wire (which is green on this model of DS adapter plug) and the red wire of the USB connector.  Tin, solder and heatshrink.

Now that most of the major soldering is done, let's recap with a handy diagram, courtesy of The GNU Image Manipulation Program:

The final thing to do is test your handywork.  Plug the USB cable into your laptop or other USB charging device then plug the other end into the DS.  If your power light comes on, you're almost done!

If your power light didn't come on, make sure you didn't reverse the VCC and ground wires in the USB plug.  Also, make sure your solder joints are good and the wires are making good contact.  If you're carpet is on fire, you may have done something horribly wrong.

 The final step is some cleanup.  Take the green and white wires from the USB cable and put some electrical tape over them.  The DS and Advance SP don't need the data pins connected, but sometimes other devices require those two wires to be terminated or biased to charge.

Wrap the whole shebang in electrical tape so it stays nice and cozy.

Just to be on the safe side, I checked mine with a multimeter.  I found 4.97v and 488mA.  Spiffy.

That's about it!  Now you can charge your DS or Gameboy Advance in Style!  If you're someone who has more USB connectors handy than actual DC outlets, this sort of thing can really come in handy.

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