Like many of my readers, I’m excited about the prospect of playing New Super Mario Brothers in 1080p with 16xAF and 8x AA and 3x the internal graphical resolution. Of course I’m not talking about the recently announced Wii 2, but the Dolphin emulator, which is currently running New Super Mario at a crisp 60fps with the above settings on my laptop. The wiimote and accessories connect fine via internal bluetooth, but what about the sensor bar? Turns out if you’ve bought yours recently you may not need anything other than a pair of scissors to convert yours to USB.
Read on to find out how!
If you search google for USB Wii sensor bar hack, you’ll find a ton of them. It’s easy to see why. The wii sensor bar is simply a 10-LED IR transmitter running at 7.5V, with no internal logic. Cracking open a Wii sensor bar made during the first few years of the Wii (and when the sensor bar hack tutorials seem to have been written), and you’ll find 2 simple 5-led IR series connected. The majority of hacks either stepped up the USB voltage to 7.5v with a battery or separate USB plug, but that is no longer necessary.
If you crack open a sensor bar made lately, you’ll see there’s been a change in design. I used a stock sensorbar that came with my (used) Wii, but I also purchased another to test (from Deal extreme here ) and it also has the new design. That’s particularly interesting, as the product image for the sensorbar on that page shows the original design. Four of the LEDs have been removed internally, meaning there are only three IR emitters on each side of the sensor bar. This is good news, as it means we no longer need the 7.5v line coming down from the wii, and should be able to get by with anywhere from 4.5 to 7 volts. As such, a stock usb line will work.
Take that pair of scissors I mentioned, and snip the sensorbar cable. Also find a usb cable, and snip that too. Twist together the yellow wire from the sensor bar to the silver shielding within the usb cable. Now twist the red wire from the usb cable to the red wire of the sensorbar cable. Tape together if you like, and you’re done. Thirty seconds to make a USB sensorbar (provided you’re cracking open a v2 sensorbar).
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is magnificent blog. A great read. I’ll definitely be back.
I have the same model as u but i cant seem to get it to work. ive connected all the wires to the needed places like you say but still nothin. i need help!
It’s possible your model is using higher voltage LEDS. If you’ve got a soldering iron handy, you could try removing a couple of the LEDS and see if that frees up the necessary voltage. Also, make sure what you’re plugged into is supplying usb power to the device, some laptops etc won’t shoot power down a line unless they are active or mounted etc. Good luck!
The old model Wii sensor bar used 22 ohm resistors if I remember correctly. This newer model likely has 47 ohm resistors to compensate for the lighter workload of 6 (as opposed to 10) LEDs on the same 7.5 volts. Merely hooking it up to a 5 volt power source is going to give you about 1/3 of the original output intensity on the LEDs.
To bring it back up close to the original intensity, you could either remove one LED from each side (2 total) and bridge the gaps like you said, and this is going to give you 2/3 of the original output. Or if you’re willing to spend a couple bucks at Radio Shack, you could replace the 47 ohm resistors with 22 ohm ones and get an LED output very close to the original intensity, all while getting to keep all your LEDs.
Of course, this is a “solder-free” guide…
Hey Jacob,
Great info! I hadn’t noticed any loss of functionality with the reduced brightness of the LEDS but I have been playing really close to my laptop. Thanks for the heads up! I may just head over to RS tonight and get me some 22ohmRs!
/H
You guys are pretty smart…all this ohm stuff flies over my head. I have the old sensor bar, if I remove 4 of the 10 LEDs (and bridge the gaps), then do your simple mod, it should work fine right?
Thanks again for this!
Hey Sean,
Yep, but there’s not need to worry. Its not going to harm your LEDS from overvoltage off of 5v USB. As Jacob said though, the brightness will decrease as a result of this. I haven’t noticed any troubles from lower infrared output, but it’s something to be mindful of. Best of luck!
Thanks Hunter! The mod was a success! Made the cable and used some heat shrink tubing to finalize/beautify it
Since I have the old sensor bar from back in 2008, it had the 10 LEDs. I removed 4 LEDs total. (2nd and 4th LEDs from both sides). I clipped the LEDs off near actual clear plastic, then I bent the remaining pins towards each other then used a bit of solder to bridge the gap
Was considering a wireless bar for the longest time but I knew the battery issue would prove to be annoying. This solution is perfect! The USB plugs right into the where the WiFi adaptor would go on my TV (which I’ll never use)
Sticky taped the sensor bar upside down on the bottom of the TV, nice and slick. Can barely notice it.
Thanks again hunter! Hopefully other find this helpful
Take care.