Wii "Sensor" Bar USB mod

Yeah, I still haven't upgraded. The same old Wii that I bought back in 2006. 

The Wii is not getting a lot of use lately and I noticed the sensor bar isn't working. It is common knowledge that sensor bar has no "sensor" at all. The sensor is in the Wiimote and the sensor bar is really just emitting infrared signal. 

I have two problems, the IR LED is no longer emitting (a working sensor bar should lights when viewed through camera) and I don't know whether it is the Wii or the sensor bar that is broken. The other problem is simply that the sensor bar needs to be hooked up to the Wii and it makes it difficult to get the sensor bar connected away from Wii.

I read from post on the web that says I can power the sensor bar using 5V USB. I tried with a variable voltage power supply and I found out it isn't quite true. Maybe it works for some newer sensor bars. But 5V isn't enough to drive mine. I have to use 7.5V to power it up which matches some other posts I read.

Although it works with 7.5V (or even 9V) P/S, it is still not ideal as it is not a common power source. So I decided to take the sensor bar apart to see what I can do to fix it.

The first problem is the screws.

Proprietary screws!

It just makes it so much harder to unscrew the bar. I tried a power drill, it sort of worked on a few but didn't work on others. Then I recall I had a broken screw driver

And it worked!

The design is very simple. There are 2 wires. The red is the +ve and the white is -ve. The wires are then jumped to the other side in parallel. There are 5 LEDs connected in serial along with a resistor measured to be 25 ohm. 

I recall that I can get the LED lite up when bypassing the resistor but that might burn the LEDs in the long run. I thought about reducing the resistance by adding a resistor in parallel but it would require some soldering. Eventually, I decided to just short one LED out.

 
That was super easy as no wiring is needed. The LED lite up beautifully with a USB power supply that is commonly available.

Even more useful is that I can connect the sensor bar with common backup batteries for cell phone and make the sensor bar sort of wireless. This would allow me to use Wii with a projector.

In the mean time though, I am happy that I can use my Wii again. 4 LEDs are more than enough as newer sensor bars has just 3 on each side. 

You wonder how I power the sensor bar? The Wii of course!

Its built-in USB port is perfect. No extra power outlet required!