Extend Your Own Sensor Bar - Page 6

Originally Posted by The_Fuzz

I just got mine tonight to. It came in a box with poor a english translation "High quality efficient of transmit cable". Right. Anyway the company that makes it is "Dragon". The cable is 6 ft long, and sounds about the same as yours, Todd. So it sounds like their are 2 sources, yours shipped a bit faster, and was 2 dollars cheaper, so it sounds like they win. I can finally put my sensor bar above my screen so that all my empty beer bottles don't block the signal! yay! Anyway, off to play some Super Paper Mario!

Originally Posted by kwanbis

Hello everybody. I was about to cut my wired sensor bar cable to attach it to an DC power, but now i have a doubt. I tried with 2 candles, and the wii won't show the "selection hands" on the screen. So before i proceed, if i disconnect the sensor bar from the wii, but i give it power either by a 9volt battery, or by some connection to the electricity on my house, if i have done all fine, would it work? For sure? Or do i still need a second sensor bar connected to the wii? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Murphy74

JoshuaL: You'd want to run a wire from the notched side of the Wii to the notched side of sensor 1, then the unnotched side of the wii to the unnotched side of sensor 2, and a jumper between the unnotched side of sensor 1 to the notched side of sensor 2. It will create a circuit in series-- similar to stacking batteries in a remote nipple-to-butt.

Also, I just got my Nextronics wireless bar. It has a 3v 200ma AC adapter with it (I hadn't seen power posted anywhere on it so here it is). It works, but no better than my Nintendo stock sensor bar I wired to a 9 volt battery-- matter off act, it acctually gets a shorter range than my stock unit. Very disappointing.

For my stock unit, I used the 'fill the connector' method, but did it more in the spirit/idea of Christmas lights using a piece of speaker cable, an off on switch, and 9v battery. I basically just stripped the end of the speaker wire, folded the stripped ends to the outside like hair (very similar to how the small Christmas tree lights connect to their socket with the 2 pieces of wire coming out from underneath the bulb's base), and shoved it in and taped it-- worked great, and is still solid after 2 months.

I'm still not getting the stability or range with the sensor I'd like-- I'm on a 112" screen at 16:9. The Nextronics unit makes the finger 'disappear' at a shorter distance than my Nintendo&9V solution. Interested to see what other non-battery solutions have been concocted. Still like the idea of a 5 or 7 led cluster on a wider (maybe 24-30"?) base. Anyone done that yet? Or more importantly, anyone shared their results of that yet?

Open to other suggestions too.

Murph

Originally Posted by kwanbis

Hello everybody. I was about to cut my wired sensor bar cable to attach it to an DC power, but now i have a doubt. I tried with 2 candles, and the wii won't show the "selection hands" on the screen.

Originally Posted by Murphy74

JoshuaL: You'd want to run a wire from the notched side of the Wii to the notched side of sensor 1, then the unnotched side of the wii to the unnotched side of sensor 2, and a jumper between the unnotched side of sensor 1 to the notched side of sensor 2. It will create a circuit in series-- similar to stacking batteries in a remote nipple-to-butt.

Originally Posted by Murphy74

thinking about running the 2 nextronics clusters stacked to give a 4 LED cluster and hte Nintendo bar at the other of the 'extended' bar to see what happens.

Originally Posted by SpeedyHTPC


Wouldnt hooking it up in series double the resistance? There are resistors suited for 12v coming from the Wii in the bar.

I thought hooking it up in parallel is the best way. The AC adaptor would be able to handle both bars. I'm not certain if the Wii can handle it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
So with that, stacking two Nextronics bars wouldnt work that well either. But you may be able to get by since your screen is smaller and distance is closer. By stacking the bars you increase the angles a bit.

Originally Posted by tryingtimes

I see - at least it doesn't put a big "Sensor bar not connected" sign up there, which means that if you manage to power the bar, it should work (providing the Wii doesn't need to receive any info).

Originally Posted by SpeedyHTPC

The LEDs are all DC powered. So yes you should be able to power the Nyko with a wall brick. Just find one that has the same power as the sum of all the batteries.

Originally Posted by SpeedyHTPC

Wouldnt hooking it up in series double the resistance? There are resistors suited for 12v coming from the Wii in the bar.

I thought hooking it up in parallel is the best way. The AC adaptor would be able to handle both bars. I'm not certain if the Wii can handle it.

Originally Posted by JoshuaL

No electrical experience here, so pardon the dumb question: if I hooked up 2 sensor bars to the one wire coming from the Wii (by cutting, stripping, and splicing together so that the positive from the Wii is connected to the positive of both bars, etc.) would that work? There seems to be enough power to do it, but am I missing something from a basic electrical standpoint?

Originally Posted by jazjon

Once the Nyko is on AC power full time, can we disable the power savings beep?
(cut wire inside, or remove speaker etc)

Originally Posted by JoshuaL

Impatient person that I am, I tried what I originally proposed above (I assumed that that was the basic definition of parallel). And, it worked!

Originally Posted by JoshuaL

So, to answer my original question: it looks like the Wii can power two sensor bars at the same time. Cool.

Now, I'm going to transfer it to the basement (where my home theater is mid-construction) and use it for my future 114" screen. I'll likely be putting it on top of the screen, unless anyone has encountered any problems with top positioning on a large screen.