Cats are great. I love cats. I love my cat. But sometimes my cat needs to be sent to the glue mill because he does things that are annoying. It's the only way he'll learn. This is a simple pictorial guide that goes through the process of repairing a Wii Sensor bar after your beloved pets/siblings/partners have chewed through the tiny cable. Warning: soldering required!
Step 1: Unscrew all 6 tiny screws across the bottom of the sensor bar. They turned out to be in there really good, so I had to use a pair of pliers to get some additional torque.
Step 2: Carefully separate the bottom piece of plastic from the rest of the bar. It lifts off really easily, no sneaky glue/hook surprises.
Step 3: Take note of the wire colours here. If you forget, there's a 50/50 chance you'll mess up!
Step 4: Cut the sensor bar wire after all the chewing is done. Strip it back carefully with a razor. Thankfully the wire is ridiculously long so there's plenty left over (good luck if it got chewed off near the plug!)
Step 5: Just de-solder the old wire and re-solder this newly stripped end. Make sure you solder to the correct pads on the sensor bar circuit. Then put it all back together and plug it in!
Conclusion: This is really, really easy to do and shouldn't scare anyone who's tinkered with electronics. Also it seems as though the Wii sensor bar is literally just a bunch of Infra-Red LEDs. No communications at all.
Step 1: Unscrew all 6 tiny screws across the bottom of the sensor bar. They turned out to be in there really good, so I had to use a pair of pliers to get some additional torque.
Step 2: Carefully separate the bottom piece of plastic from the rest of the bar. It lifts off really easily, no sneaky glue/hook surprises.
Step 3: Take note of the wire colours here. If you forget, there's a 50/50 chance you'll mess up!
Step 4: Cut the sensor bar wire after all the chewing is done. Strip it back carefully with a razor. Thankfully the wire is ridiculously long so there's plenty left over (good luck if it got chewed off near the plug!)
Step 5: Just de-solder the old wire and re-solder this newly stripped end. Make sure you solder to the correct pads on the sensor bar circuit. Then put it all back together and plug it in!
Conclusion: This is really, really easy to do and shouldn't scare anyone who's tinkered with electronics. Also it seems as though the Wii sensor bar is literally just a bunch of Infra-Red LEDs. No communications at all.
Thanks Jon, been looking for exactly this, a photo inside a working sensor bar, since my two year old pulled the wire out. You say, take note of the wire colours, but I can't see a difference in the colours of the two wire threads. Sucks being colour blind.
ReplyDeleteAny chance you could illuminate me?
Thank you very much Sir!
ReplyDeleteWas attempting to simply re-link a simple break in the line and tested with multimeter and it did not work, but thought I'd give it one more try after reading your tips. Works perfectly now!
"it seems as though the Wii sensor bar is literally just a bunch of Infra-Red LEDs. No communications at all."
ReplyDeleteNo DUH Sherlock
I know u posted this a while back but it definitely worked. Just wanted to say thanks.
ReplyDelete