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WoodBeyond DSPico (short review)

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My DSPico from WoodBeyond has arrived in the post just this afternoon and I'm going to describe in greater detail as to what I think of it.

The DSPico came in a small bag for where a USB cable would go, but I later found out this was to accommodate the extra parts it comes with. The microUSB cable came separately with how it was packaged and sent out. The microUSB cable itself is short (roughly 0.2 meters); I would've preferred a nice and longer cable than the one it comes with because it would make my life easier.

Inside the small bag, it comes with a few extras: a front shell that exposes the GPIO pins on the Pico, x6 stickers, and the DSPico itself (I have selected a white shell). Onto the cartridge itself; when the shell has been placed, there are still blank gaps around the sides of the cartridge (left and right), almost like it wasn't closed properly. It doesn't help that one of the corners is slightly cracked from when it was done, like, if somebody had placed so much pressure. Print quality is not bad aside from what I've stated about the shell.

Inspecting the stickers, the print quality looked grainy, but not enough to ruin the overall quality of them—they are glossy coated. There was also one misprint I found that had the LNH logo overlapping in the top-left corner. When applying one of the stickers onto my cartridge, I have to center it at the bottom whilst applying it, because the first attempt did not fit the area where the label was supposed to go due to the dimensions. If you don't like how the stickers come with it, there are other places to get DS labels made that should fit your cartridge, such as Etsy.

What you might be asking is, "Does it fit well into a Nintendo DS?" I took two DS consoles out of my collection, those being the original DS (NTR-001) and the Nintendo 3DS (CTR) model. The cartridge has fitment issues, with the shell being too thick to fit into my 3DS; it gets stuck right after I insert it, and I cannot remove it without my fingernail. The same results go for the original DS. I'm not sure if this was how the shell was designed or how it was printed; I'm likely thinking the latter.

I have yet to try this out as I'm in the midst of compiling the bootloader and firmware, but I'll come back with the results. But everything that I have described is all you need to know, and should you buy this is up to you. I wish they could improve the shell to fit in every console, the cable it comes with, and also better improve the stickers and maybe offer different finishes—both glossy and matte because the glossy labels are notable fingerprint magnets. So, for the price, I can't complain too much.

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Latest comments

Have you tried cleaning the contacts with isopropyl alcohol? The contacts can become dirty from fingerprints or dust alone, hence it's not making a solid connection with the pins. You can also try slipping a thin piece of card underneath to give the contacts some leverage as it's a common problem with flimsy carts.

Do you have a photo of the flashcart in question? There's probably, like, a dozen or-so R4i carts with the same name, I might be able to help you out since I know about them.
Oh this was like 10 years ago, pretty sure I don't have it anymore :sailor-embarrassed:
Oddly enough this sounds like the exact advice that I read back then, fairly sure I cleaned it & even did the paper trick, & the SD card still worked. The thing just stopped working for after a year, & never bought DS flashcarts since then. Oh well!
😃that’s pretty neat
:sailor-embarrassed: and for whatever reason, reading all this makes it hard not to think about this video, even though its off topic but I can’t get it out of my system, it’s quite odd but thought might be fun sharing anyways 😊
Those adapters look absolutely ludicrous to install, just imagine how much space is wasted by a fraction due to the height, and I bet the motherboard might not even fit into the case right with the adapter attached. But that's unfortunately what some people are doing because of the RAM shortage crisis.
I once had a R4i flashcart back in the day but after like a year of use it suddenly died (& couldn't repair it). Any chance something like this could die after a few years of use?
Have you tried cleaning the contacts with isopropyl alcohol? The contacts can become dirty from fingerprints or dust alone, hence it's not making a solid connection with the pins. You can also try slipping a thin piece of card underneath to give the contacts some leverage as it's a common problem with flimsy carts.

Do you have a photo of the flashcart in question? There's probably, like, a dozen or-so R4i carts with the same name, I might be able to help you out since I know about them.
Had to google to see what this DSPico thing was all about, neat. But still, weird how a DS flashcart product has troubling fitting in DSs. I kept thinking "Welp, time to bring out the file" & sure enough you sanded it down lol.
I once had a R4i flashcart back in the day but after like a year of use it suddenly died (& couldn't repair it). Any chance something like this could die after a few years of use?
Your only way of getting the cartridge to fit, is by sanding down the back or front of the shell, so it'll at least (hopefully) fit snugly. The games themselves run flawlessly as Pico-Loader has solid support and faster loading times over something, like, nds-bootstrap would. It's probably, by far, my favorite flashcart to use so far, so I'll keep it in my DS for now until I get to do further testing.

Believe me when I say this, but there's no firmware pre-programmed onto the cart, you have to compile it yourself before transferring it to the Pico. I can't say this is recommended for the people who want to play their DS ROMs straight from the microSD card once they insert it, it requires extra steps if you understand how to compile source code via an SDK. The WoodBeyond team should've maybe done that from the start, but I believe this is something to do with legal issues as it requires the "official" blowfish keys to sign the firmware, which was dumped from the gigaleaks. It's more targeted towards the more experienced and experimental hobbyist for developing homebrew that interfaces with the DSPico with the extra capabilities it has in mind (considering it's a DSi-mode capable flashcart). If you have any flashcart, that being the Ace3DS+ or AK2i, you can download Pico-Launcher and its loader for your specific cart and run your games as if you have one.
😃that’s pretty neat
:sailor-embarrassed: and for whatever reason, reading all this makes it hard not to think about this video, even though its off topic but I can’t get it out of my system, it’s quite odd but thought might be fun sharing anyways 😊
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