shmups.system11.org

I'm doing a "consolized" Nintendo Switch where I want to mod it and overclock the hell of it xD. Anyways... I didn't want to use the battery so I used a buck converter wired to 15v from the dock and then step it down to 4.2v.
It works! During the startup there is 0.4A consumed for booting the system and from there on the energy will be supplied by the dock itself. The only thing needed is to ground the sensor wire (grey one in the middle of the connector).

Nice It’s sad to think about the millions of Nintendo Switch consoles that will be e-waste in the future when their batteries die. Hopefully replacements will be available for a long time, but it’s good that a simple solution like this can at least make the console run, although only docked.

Good job!

I didn’t know this. I’m pretty worried from a preservation point of view.
So if you remove the battery it won’t work even docked without a mod?
I hope this is easy to do eventually as I don’t even use my switch as a handheld and want to keep it for decades like my old nintendo consoles.

To be honest I never even thought about the batteries inside of a switch

Yes without a battery the Switch won’t power on.
Not sure if it will still work with a dead battery though, but it might get so swollen that it will have to be removed regardless. The back of the Switch looks like pretty thin plastic, presumably to allow the battery to expand. I wonder if that plastic will crack or the PCB’s could become damaged from the pressure over time?
Regardless very few will ever replace the battery, most will probably just recycle a non working console, and even fewer will mod it like this to keep it working docked.

I rarely use my Switch anymore, but last night we wanted to play Snipperclips. With no charge in the battery it took at least 10 min before I could turn on the console in docked mode. Another annoyance to look forward to for retro enthusiasts. It won’t be plug and play like other systems, so that’s actually another good reason one might consider doing this mod. Because that should allow for instant booting

Hmm, hopefully what you designed can be shrunk down to a small internal unit that clips to the battery port and can sit in that area with the battery removed or something.
As a retro console enthusiast this situation is a complete shock. I just assumed it would work docked no matter what.
Fortunately as a retro enthusiast I am no stranger to getting my hands dirty and modding old machines to improve them, but I would rather the mod be a product than a jerry-rig.
I will keep an eye on this topic. I am surprised that this isn’t more widely known or worried about.

This mod is a overkill as I wasn't aware of how much current the Switch needed to boot. So as I mentioned it only uses 0.4A and the voltage has to be between 3.3v and 4.2v. So a simple 5v to 3.3v board should be enough for making it boot and there are tons of small ones doing that.

I'll try to get one of those and test it.

This thread is great, thanks!

I have done some testing with my bench PSU and the minimum voltage for the Switch to boot is 3.4V but it will identify the battery as running low and it will keep poping up the message about that. But with 3.5V there is no such message as it identifies the battery as at 25%-ish.

Long history short: a small buck converter from 5V to something between 3.5V and 4.2V is enough. With such converter being small enough to fit in the battery compartment it would be possible to open a hole in the top corner of the Switch and then run an USB cable thru there. This way such cable could be plugged to the dock and no mod in the dock itself would be needed.

I have to say that I'm just a hobbyist so I don't have major knowledge about the hardware. Probably there is a way to get the voltage from inside the Switch itself instead of the dock but when I tried to do that the console didn't boot up. Maybe cutting some traces or maybe using some diodes to guarantee the current flow would be enough. But for that we need someone who knows what they are doing

One of those cheap chinese buck converters with 3.7V output should be good enough https://www.ebay.com/itm/175414185706?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20211130125621%26meid%3Ded8a69f50c9b43bbad4bcb8475633e5d%26pid%3D101465%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D175414185706%26itm%3D175414185706%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D3817808%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p3817808.c101465.m3507