Wii Signal Thingy

Faynor

So my mom was vacuuming the other day and accidentally drove over the thing that gets the signal from the Wii-Motes to play. She managed to get it out, but the wires were pretty ruined so it isn't really workable.

Is there a way to specifically buy this, or how should I about repairing it? Not really sure what to do, and Nintendo's site wasn't very helpful.

Erandus

Wireless and wired.

CangoFett

Also, if you're a DIYer, you can make your own with some infared LEDs.


Though you called it a "signal thingy" so... Maybe the wireless ones to keep it safer in the future.

darkgrue

The wire on the original bar is only for power, there's no signalling or even any special electronics in the bar. It's just a pair of infrared LEDs. The connector's seriously oddball though, and I suspect the wire would be very difficult to splice, it's probably hair-thin braided stuff (though there might be no harm in trying, even just twisting the wire together and some tape might get you back in business). You could run the bar off of the USB port just as well though (although perhaps not without refiguring the circuit resistance, I don't know if the dedicated connector is also 5VDC or not).

There are a lot of aftermarket bars (Nextronics makes some that are designed to place the lights farther apart for large HD TV's), some of which are arguably better than what comes with the Wii, some are just... different. The wireless bars are somewhat pointless unless you travel with your Wii, as you have to remember to turn them on and off, and replace the batteries that drive them.

This is the link to the part directly from Nintendo, $7.50+shipping for a refurbished(?) Wii sensor bar, so not really worth a DIY job, unless you have the necessary parts and connectors lying around.

EggyToast

My friend broke his sensor bar and used two tall candles to replace them. Placed directly below the screen, in his case. And yes, it was entertaining to see the cursor wiggle when a gust of air caused the flame to waver.