Wii Sensor Bar Repair

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.



Comments

  1. 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.

    Any chance you could illuminate me?

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  2. Thank you very much Sir!

    Was 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!

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  3. "it seems as though the Wii sensor bar is literally just a bunch of Infra-Red LEDs. No communications at all."

    No DUH Sherlock

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  4. I know u posted this a while back but it definitely worked. Just wanted to say thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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