I decided to build a Wii Sensor Bar myself because, 1. The range of the original sensor bar was low and 2. I wanted to try out the pointing mechanism on my PC.

I went and bought 6 Infrared LEDs in the morning and the shopkeeper told me that they were to be given 3 Volts only. After testing them on 3Volts, I burnt out 4 LEDs and finally found out that 1.5 Volts would be enough. I had only 2 LEDs remaining and therefore, I went back to the shop and bought more LEDs. After testing all of them, I started working on making the sensor bar. I decided to make two separate modules rather than a single module so that I could have more flexibility. I would be able to adjust the distance depending on the screen size if I had two separate modules connected by a wire.

I used matchboxes as the holder for the Infrared LEDs, a little primitive but acceptable. I decided to put to 3 Infrared LEDs on each box. I proceeded to make 6 holes on each box and fit the LEDs in. After a little soldering and wiring, all the LEDs were connected to each other but I still had to join the boxes to each other. I connected four AA batteries in parallel to produce a stronger 1.5 Volts since a single battery was too weak to power 6 LEDs. I added a simple switch and the setup was ready.

The problems I faced were few but critical. First of all, the light emitted by Infrared LEDs is not visible to the human eye. So, I had to keep my camera at hand to check the LEDs. And one more thing was that LEDs are pretty sensitive so if I soldered it for too long, the heat might burn out the LED. And as such, I had to keep checking the LEDs after every solder with my camera which was pretty tiring.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect it to work the first time. I started the Wii and blocked the original sensor and placed my custom sensor bar next to it. It Worked!! The range was very good, more than the length of my hall which was enough for me since the original sensor bar didn’t work when I stood at the far end of my hall. I was pretty happy with the result and proceeded to try it on my computer. It wasn’t very good but acceptable. I think the script could be improved but it was a good start. Pictures below -

Checking the LEDs after a solder

Close up of one of the boxes

The entire setup

Click on thumbnails for fullsize images

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.