I had my eyes set on buying the Switch for the longest time. However, I am also a cautious buyer. I wanted to make sure the product I was buying didn’t come with any faults. And then I heard about the subpar kickstand, the cracking plastic, and of course, the JoyCon drift. Besides JoyCon drift, I was still pretty much sold on the Switch. But I never pulled the trigger, as I always worried Nintendo would announce some sort of pair of improved JoyCon that didn’t drift, probably alongside a Switch Pro or whatever. So I just kept waiting.
Then in mid-April 2020, I stumbled across a Vice article about some guy who built his Switch using parts he found online.
I decided I wanted to try the same thing, because even though stock wasn’t super limited here in Canada, I didn’t want to buy a new one just to have the JoyCons drift on me prematurely. I’m not a wasteful person.
I wanted to take it a step further though. I had been buying plenty of tech beforehand on AliExpress, and I knew it was a good marketplace to go to for spare parts, as they were often cheaper then going to eBay. So, I wanted to use this project as a testament to how effective AliExpress parts really were.
Over 3 quarters of the parts in my Switch were not OEM. I aimed for getting both the motherboard and battery as OEM parts, motherboard for obvious reasons, and battery for safety reasons. All other parts I would try to avoid OEM as much as possible. At the end of the day, the motherboard, metal shield plate, and iron middle frame were the only OEM parts used. I couldn’t even get an OEM battery, but I trusted the parts shop enough (one of the rare instances where I bought outside of AliExpress for this project) that I just went with the battery. I believe the motherboard and iron middle frame are really the only parts you have to get OEM now, as I even started seeing listings for brand new, non-OEM metal shield plates. Every single part besides the motherboard, battery, and kickstand, was purchased on AliExpress.
Did I save money doing this? Nope. AliExpress tends to have really slow shipping if you cheap out, so I tried to spend around $5 or so on every part being shipped in. If you’re buying on AliExpress, ePacket is a good shipping option that usually has your order arrive in 2 weeks and comes with tracking numbers. A lot of the cost also went towards the motherboard as I was specifically looking for a V2 motherboard that wasn’t banned from online and also had better battery efficiency. This one seller on eBay has a monopoly on the motherboard market with verified V2 motherboards, and charged $179.99 USD (it was originally $189.99 USD but we negotiated a $10 discount since I was in Canada). It hurt harder with the import fees. In the end, I might’ve spent closer to $600 CAD on everything, but I have very few regrets about that given the gratifying experience and the fact I was buying $50 worth of parts at a time besides the motherboard.
Speaking of the gratifying experience, I gained a much deeper understanding for the inner workings of the Switch, and I’m currently plotting to make further modifications such as a larger battery and an improved kickstand, which hopefully I can somehow mod the OLED one in. I’m currently using a Nyko kickstand for now, as it comes with additional storage space for microSD card storage. I’m really looking to make this handheld my own improved version, better than any stock V2 Switch out of box. And I’m really glad that I have a deeper understanding of the hardware now, because if I run into any hardware issues, then as long as I don’t need to do microsoldering, I can probably fix it myself.
Did I run into any issues? A lot of it was finding the right screws to fit in the right places, and making sure the screw holes in some of these parts were large enough for that. I recommend taking precaution towards looking for any plastic parts in particular that need to be screwed into position. Read customer reviews and take a look at customer pictures as well, to make sure you’re getting the right parts. I also had trouble with the touchscreen, as I bought the wrong cartridge slot at first. Certain cartridge slots are only compatible with certain digitizers, but I luckily found a cartridge slot made by a 3rd party that worked with both V1 and V2 digitizers, and got my screen working perfectly.
As for the initial reason I wanted to do this, the JoyCons, I did extensive research online for a good pair that at least had gyros, NFC, and of course analog sticks that didn’t drift prematurely. I found a pair of DOBE TNS-0163 JoyCons that did just that. They unfortunately didn’t have connectors that directly connected the JoyCons to the Switch, so I could only connect via Bluetooth. They also had turbo buttons, which I dislike, so I opened them up to remove them and got some plastic epoxy putty to fill in the holes. While I got them opened up, I was able to confirm that they used full-size analog sticks, so they won’t drift as early and I could get them replaced with ALPS sticks if I wanted to. I ended up splitting up the D-pad in the left JoyCon into 4 buttons that could all be independently pushed, to help further mirror the original JoyCons. As for how the JoyCons function, the gyros work as expected and they feel ergonomic in the hands. It’s also capable of waking the Switch up from sleep, and I was able to find a NFC antenna in the right JoyCon. I haven’t tested NFC yet since I don’t have Amiibo, but I have confidence that it works. They both charge via USB-C ports in the bottom.
Besides the future plans of possibly expanding the battery and improving the kickstand, I do plan on getting a ClearPlex screen protector (Best Buy Canada makes custom ones) and a Skull & Co Maxcarry case. I also don’t have a dock yet, and will be buying an OEM dock as well as the Myriann/Basstop dock shell to put the dock board inside. I also don’t have a microSD card yet, so I’m planning to buy a 512GB one as I want to commit to digital purchases. I’ve only been playing Asphalt 9, Pokemon Cafe Mix, and Arena of Valor so far given the limited internal storage I have.
This project took me a lot of patience as I was budgeting with other important financial matters as well, hence why I was mainly spending in $50 increments. I started ordering parts in late May 2020, only to finally finish closer to mid-September 2021. My job has been a decent distraction from stressing over finishing the project. In hindsight, would I have still splurged on shipping? I could’ve saved around $100 CAD if I cheaped out on shipping, but I would’ve paid up anyways for peace of mind.
Would I recommend anybody else try this project? Only if you have a decent amount of experience assembling electronics. My prior experience was really just grabbing a bunch of broken Samsung Galaxy S4 phones and making a functional phone from those broken phones. I benefitted from the fact that Nintendo worked to make this console super repairable. I could argue that this is probably the most repairable Nintendo console in 15 or 16 years. Unfortunately, the OLED model’s eMMC chip is soldered to the board, I hope not to see that for the Switch sequel as well.
Is AliExpress a website you can trust? I’ve been buying stuff from AliExpress for a few years now, as a lot of their stuff is priced competitively lower than eBay and Amazon, and a lot of the folks on eBay and Amazon are just dropshipping from AliExpress anyways. If shipping time is your concern, just pay $4-5 for shipping, it’d still probably be cheaper than eBay or Amazon anyways. AliExpress is for the most part, a safer marketplace than people paint it to be. I just recommend practicing common sense by looking at how many people ordered the product, checking for product images uploaded by customers, etc. Any time I have had a bad experience on AliExpress, I just file a dispute on the order. I’ve never lost a dispute (but don’t abuse that feature just because the product you received is subpar). They also accept PayPal now if you’re worried about your card information getting stolen. If you would rather be fleeced on eBay or Amazon, be my guest.