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My two sons are color
blind (technically color deficient) and cannot distinguish the
difference between the green and red battery indicator light on the
Nintendo DS. The solution for both the original DS and DS Lite is to tape a vinyl Red Dot on top of the
battery indicator light. (The battery indicator light is just to
the right of the orange charging light.) When the battery
indicator light is green, indicating a charged battery, the light does
not show up at all through the red vinyl. When the battery
indicator light turns to red, indicating the battery needs to be
charged, the red light shows up brightly through the red vinyl and is
easily seen.
The vinyl Red Dot functions as a light filter. My
sons can now easily tell when the red indicator light comes on and know
that they
need to recharge the battery. For the original DS I made the Red Dot by simply using a
paper punch to punch out a dot from a piece of red vinyl. For the
DS Lite cut the Red Dot in half and tape the half-dot over the battery
indicator light with the cut side toward the charging light (see the photo below
of the DS Lite).
Finding both the right color and thickness of vinyl that would work well was a project of trial and error. Finally I found some small four-inch-square vinyl flags (used to mark outdoor plots and transects) that had the right color and thickness for the desired effect. (If the vinyl is too thin, then both color lights shine through.) Finding a paper hole punch that would give a clean cut through the vinyl was also an initial problem to overcome. I finally found one in a craft store that cut cleanly and also provided a dot that was slightly smaller than the standard size. The smaller size works well on the original DS. The lights on the DS Lite are slightly taller, and a standard hole punch is better to get a Red Dot with an increased diameter. Cut this standard sized Red Dot in half, and tape it over the battery indicator light of the DS Lite with the cut side toward the charging light (see the photo below of the DS Lite).
After first experimenting with rubber cement under and around the edges of the
Red Dot, I found this worked OK for a while, however the dot would
eventually rub off. My original intent was to find a way to easily
remove the dot with no mark at all left on the DS. The rubber
cement did, in fact, leave no mark, however it would just not stay on
well enough with normal use. I finally just taped the Red Dot on
using heavy transparent tape, and this has worked well. I have not
tried to remove the tape, since it is more important to know whether or
not the light is green or red at this point, rather than knowing if the
tape may leave a residue or not if removed. Although that was one
of the original objectives, that secondary objective was abandoned in
favor of the primary objective being met for the long term. The
small piece of tape I used was the good, thick, transparent Scotch 375
tape, but any transparent tape should work fine. (The tape must
be thin enough for the DS Lite to close.)
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© January 15, 2005 by Ray L. Winstead. All rights reserved.
This web page was first available January 15, 2005 (updated for DS Lite January
27, 2007).
!!!!!!!! If you are color deficient, also check out "Visolve" ( https://www.ryobi.co.jp/products/visolve/en/ ), the free software that transforms colors of the computer display into the discriminable colors for various people including people with color vision deficiency, commonly called color blindness. In addition to distinguishing colors and finding a specific color, it aims to help people with color blindness to guess a normal color, and to feel the color gradations in natural scenery etc. by their visual information.
"Same solution could also be used for other red/green indicator lights -
check this one out!"