Hacking Guide to The Wii GiftCard

Target is handing out Wii GiftCards in anticipation of Nintendo's release of this remarkable console. The cards are a bit thicker than your regular credit card and house some pretty nifty electronics. Pressing the button on the outside of the card turns on a ominous blue Wii glow that lasts about ten seconds. I'll pop the case on this little thing and check out the internals. After that we'll add a bit of functionality to the LEDs.

Gather up some tools...

#0 Phillips Screwdriver
Small Flat Screwdrivers
Soldering Iron & Solder
Forceps or Needle Nose Pliers
Knife

and lets get started!

Step 1: Crack The Case

On the back side of the card are four #0 Phillips screws to remove.

Carefully remove the backplate and observe the four light diffusers on the edges of the card.

Stash the backplate, diffusers, and screws somewhere safe.

Comments

[hrodriguez7]

why not just spraypaint the back white?

[bsdbf]

can some one tell me how i can get one PLEASE

[friedpope]

Target stopped producing these once the Wii was released a few years ago.

Keep an eye out for some of the other crazy gift cards they make, I don't think they have anything electronic right now. Nevertheless they are pretty creative in the gifting department.

[bfloobis]

i want to know too...

[lolcat360]

If it's a gift card, why would you want to scratch off the bar code?

[khaos4ng31]

No... He used Gimp and Blurred it so nobody would try and use it, because it is possible to reactivate a used gift card and track someone with it.

[seabananers]

maybe he used it all ready like if it's empty

[maxpower49]

wot is the point of this?

[Bert99]

the point is to change the color on a gift card and make it seem complimicated.

[hassannaeem101]

do they still sell em

[Kikurimu]

They stopped selling the wii ones a while back, but they just started selling Blu-Ray giftcards which are exactly the same. (I guess they just had blank ones and printed Blu-ray instead of Wii on them.

[ReCreate]

wow the pictures are...awesome they look soo professional

[Xynck]

So.. What does it do? As far as I can tell, you took apart a card, changed the lights, and did something with Morse Code.

[heaveN]

Funny comment; 'morse code' Besides that; what a cool giftcard. Looks neat :]

[Colonel88]

I cant find them anymore. I have a wii but noo gift card

[caclark]

This gives me an idea, but I'm not too circuit savvy.
What would I need to solder in to allow this to run from a 12v source?
If you're wondering where I'm going with this, look at --> this.

I've got a blue car with a blue interior - so this would be cool. But I'd never pay $80-100 dollars for this.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

[spork969]

12v leds ftw

[xoClaire]

...thats pretty rad.

[marc92]

You have a sweet car

[royalestel]

You just need a large resistor to drop the voltage to 5v. Then solder the 5v power to the positive and negative points on the board mentioned by friedpope above (and remove the batteries) and you should be good to go.

[CaffeineHouse]

you could also use a 7805 voltage regulator chip.

[royalestel]

Can you program the 7805? I might have need for a dual-voltage output circuit in the near future . . .

[CaffeineHouse]

no, the 7805 puts out a constant 5v+, but there are other similar chips which do the same thing but output different voltages. here is an adjustable one:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062601&cp=&sr=1&origkw=voltage+regulator&kw=voltage+regulator&parentPage=search

[royalestel]

Thankee! thankee!

[friedpope]

That's an excellent schematic. Your right about the PNP resistor, the anodes of the LEDs are connected to the emitter of the transistor. When you see that it means that a positive voltage will go from the transistor and into the LEDs, a PNP will do that when you bring the base to ground.

[royalestel]

Oh, I get it. Thanks so much for the explanation. I'm learning a little bit every day. :)

[doomduc]

Hey! I've got that exact same knife. Good people know good tools.

[ojochris]

agreed, I have it also. But did you get yours in a set or a single? I have 4 of the kind(just diff. blades)

[friedpope]

Just a single, my grandpa had an identical knife for most of his life.

[ojochris]

This set was my first, my grandpa gave it to me, I was 8. (I'm 15 now, and they are all in near perfect condition, and are used.) I practice my karate with them(I think I'm a little crazy) lol I'v got soooo
many scars from those knifes it beyond funny.

[doomduc]

single

[ojochris]

cool

[led235]

does target give them away anymore?

[he3r0]

Instead of a razor, get a fine grit sand paper in sheet, than lay your GC on that sheet and sand it down

[Jr Hacking kid]

hay could i buy one from you

[cotton]

you are buts becasue this is nutes it is not the bad nuts it is the good nuts lol i love it

[Amon2]

How do you short out the resistors? And do you stick the wires in those holes? I dont wanna screw up on my wii target think so please reply.

[hp_bierbaumer]

a smd led driver could be used to control each led individually (but would be quite some work to rewire the board)

[Hawaii00000]

What does it do?? I'm very confused.

[Jr Hacking kid]

i cant find one do u guys want to sell me one

[the_first_place_loser]

You mentioned the non-reflective ink. I won't claim to be an expert, but maybe this is so that the black bars show up more easily to the scanner. If I'm correct, the barcode scanner looks for areas that arent reflecting. But hey, what do I know...

[Chris Tucker]

Just bought one off eBay. This will be the heart of my Aqua Team Hunger Force Ignignokt fiber optic button. Yes! I will cause havoc where ever I go in Boston & Cambridge with my "suspicious device" button! Will there be an Instructable? Oh, yes! There will be pictures!

[CaffeineHouse]

It's aqua "teen", actually.

[Chris Tucker]

Indeed it is! Of course, I could claim that I was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, brought about by the fear and terror induced by the Mooninites doing it as had as they could to the City of Boston.

[CaffeineHouse]

haha, fear the mooninites! i must say though, your post inspired me to create my own mooninite badge, although i decided to make Err. I am hoping to have an instructable up soon!

[Llewner]

An industrial grade orange cleaner works on most screen printed text on plastic. It can eat into polystyrene though.

[shadus]

Try a sugar cube next time, it works for removing most text from plastic without damaging the plastic... like the razor it takes a bit of time and patience though.

[ThumbsUp]

i have a very uneducated question:

is it possible to use IR LED's (1.7 forward voltage with a peak current of 50mA) in this set up?

If you combine this project with this gift card project, you could get something portable, adjustable, and aesthetically pleasing (seeing as the gift cards sport the Wii logo already)...

[Punkguyta]

What about dropping the leds all together and installing a high quality el wire? I'm sure they use less power and definatly aren't as "fragile" to power requirements.

[royalestel]

Hey there, friedpope, et al., I'm trying to learn about electronics and I thought I'd reverse engineer the Wii giftcard. I drew this schematic, (is it right?) but I'm having trouble figuring out if the transistor is NPN or PNP type. Do you happen to know? Everything I'm reading is getting so confusing I just don't know what to do next. Any help at all would be appreciated.

[royalestel]

Okay, the guys down the hall happened to have an old school transistor tester, which says this thing is definitively a PNP transistor. Yay! Now I can finish my reverse engineering.

[radio plano]

so i have combined my wii gift card and the target mp3 player giftcard into and rebuit the case so its the wii giftcard box but alittle thicker that lights up as the mp3 player plays inside, i do not know much about electronics and stuff but i have some spare ipod parts, a 20gb hard drive and battery, would i be able to put that into the target mp3 player giftcard for bigger memory and longer battery life?

[J_SCAP]

*CLA CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP*

[friedpope]

Ya... That's a lot of stuff. You could expand the case using some extra plastic. Sounds like you know something about electronics to get sound to trigger the LEDs, if I understand you right.

[J-Fly]

those would be way too big to put in this.

[Brassready]

How about swaping out the blue led's for clear. Then line them up on the end together. You could have a wii flashlight. Is there anyway to make turn off an on with out that 10 second timer?

[linkspast]

It be my guess, that you could just build a circuit around the timer and then remove it. But I am no expert.

[Rabid Ferrets of DOOM!!!]

How would I go about adding in a small speaker (quality doesn't matter, I only want to play like 1 NES sound) and having a sound play when the button is pressed, in addition to the lights going up? This would be my first dive into hardware programming for lack of a better term to use, so be gentle. ;) A bunch of us are buying a wii for a friend for xmas so she can play Twilight Pricess (huge Zelda fan) and if we can't get it for her in time we're gonna put the money on this card and make it play either the puzzle solved sound or the original zelda song when the button is pressed. I'm not asking for the code, more I'm asking for what part I would need to use, and where I can learn the code I would need.

[peterrus]

When using PICbasic as a programming language it isnt that hard,

; Start configDEVICE 16F628ACONFIG INTRC_OSC_NOCLKOUT, WDT_OFF, PWRTE_ON, LVP_OFF, MCLRE_OFFALL_DIGITAL TRUE; End config; Start note definitions		Symbol  R	=	0		Symbol	C	=	82		Symbol  dextra	=	85		Symbol	D	=	87		Symbol  Eb	=	89		Symbol  E	=	92		Symbol  F	=	94		Symbol  Gb	=	95		Symbol  G	=	97		Symbol	Ab1	=	99		Symbol  A1	=	73		Symbol  Bb1	=	76		Symbol  BE1	=	79		Symbol	C1	=	82		Symbol  Db1	=	85		Symbol	D1	=	87		Symbol  Eb1	=	89		Symbol  E1	=	92		Symbol  F1	=	94		Symbol  Gb1	=	95		Symbol  G1	=	97		Symbol	Ab2	=	99		Symbol	A2	=	101		Symbol	Bb2	=	102		Symbol	BE2	=	104		Symbol	C2	=	105		Symbol	Db2	=	106		Symbol	D2	=	108		Symbol	E2	=	110		Symbol	F2	=	111		Symbol	Gb2	=	112		Symbol	G2	=	113		Symbol	Bb3	=	115		Symbol	Bm3	=	116		Symbol	C3	=	117		Symbol	D3	=	118; End note defs; Start misc defssymbol PIN = PORTB.3; end misc defs; Star main programinf:    SOUND PIN,[G,80,D2,80,C2,20,BE2,20,A2,20,G2,80,D2,80,C2,20,BE2,20,A2,20,G2,80,D2,80,C2,20,BE2,20,C2,20,A2,80]	delayms 1000	goto inf; End main programend

This should play a startrek tune to the output of the speaker, how this is possible can be found on google, try searching for "pic sound output"

[friedpope]

The best sound device to add might be buzzer. If you use two pins you could get 1.5 bit sound. There's a site describing the system here, http://www.romanblack.com/picsound.htm.

[Rabid Ferrets of DOOM!!!]

Alright, thanks. I'm very unfamiliar with PICs, where can I go to learn about what they do, what kind I will need (I looked at microchip.com and there must have been thousands!!!), and how to program them?

[tic84]

somewhere you can have a quick but reasonably detailed tutorial is: h**p://www.hobbyprojects.com/pic_tutorials/introduction_to_pic.html although it costs quite a bit to buy a development board so wouldnt be worth it.

[Darkyoshi1]

Is it possible to put something in there to make the LED's pulse? I want to try make it do that but I have no idea whatsoever where to start.

[friedpope]

You can add a PIC microcontroller to do exactly that. If you're thinking of a Mac style pulse, you'll need to find the algorithm to do the fade. Other than that you need to write a program to do Pulse Width Modulation or PWM for short. PWM can change the brightness of the LEDs without changing the current or voltage.

[Kman866]

Where can I get one of those? And how much?

[TheSpillmonkey]

I am thinking of turning one into a WiFi (or i guess a WiiFi) detector. Could the casing house 2x AAA batteries if the main board was pulled out ?

[friedpope]

Not really, you'd be better off finding one of those thumb drives with the WiFi detector built in. The voltage on the card is about 4.5V so you might be able to find a detector with the same specs; so you can use the power from the coin batteries.

[Jehle]

After seeing this, I had an idea to put a small USB MP3 player I have into this enclosure. It doesn't have a lot of memory in it, but with the USB connection and the addition of a rechargable battery this could become a WiiPod. Oh, these are all over eBay for sale if you can't find them at the store.

[userman]

Target just started selling $50 MP3 player gift cards here. The thing runs on a single AAA with 5 cheap buttons and really, really cheap retractable headphones (no port).
64 MB, Faraday FIE7005: http://www.faraday-tech.com/html/solutions/7005.html
Shows up as a flash drive.

[friedpope]

Sweet! Target reinvented the gift card, and now they plan on making some money. I'll have to pick one up after I finish my finals.

[LoVeIsMuRdErouS]

all i got to say is this is sick ive messed around and my leds do 3 colours

[xsmurf]

Sort of useless, but very nice instructable nonetheless. Crystal clear images (kinda rare here). A+

[clothbot]

It could make for an interest project box though.

[zachninme]

What is small enough to fit in there?

[clothbot]

Dunno. Dimensions on the batteries appear to be 11.6mm diameter and 3.1mm high each, so you've got at least 23.4mm x 11.6mm x 3.1mm volume to work with on the two-battery side... about 1" x 0.5" and maybe 0.02" thickness. The other side fits one battery so perhaps it has the same total volume, giving you 1"x1" area.

With some carving of the middle part of the case, perhaps a gumstix board would fit in there...

Friedpope, got any measured internal and external dimensions handy? We don't have Target stores up here in Canada so I can't check it out for myself.

[Jehle]

How about adding a small LCD screen and turning it into a picture frame? I just happen to have a small Casio LCD pulled from a digital camera. I suppose most of the original circuit board would have to be removed to make space to support the LCD.

Something like this...
LCD mouse mod

[Tomasu]

I totally agree with adding a simple pic to the card, but maybe a tri color led instead of the normal? Then you can get some pretty neat things going on.

[jayfredo]

I picked up a couple of these today, going to try to make a crude SAD light out of them.

[TheCheese9921]

hey couldn't you just purchase like 50 cards spend them there, keep the card, lather rinse repeat.

[TheCheese9921]

oooh new thought buy them then use the gift cards to buy MORE gift cards then return the ones with money still on them

[cylver]

Another nitpick... 1.5 volts * 3 is 4.5 volts, not 5.

[spinach_dip]

"-There are three 10ohm current limiting resistors on the board to protect the LEDs from high voltages."

Why would *current limiting* resistors protect LEDs from high voltages? They are there to protect the LEDs from (relatively) high currents.

[friedpope]

Right you are. All better now, I must have gotten mixed up in my calculations trying to find the voltage ratings of the LEDs.

[spinach_dip]

Forgot to mention earlier that this is pretty cool. Nice work.

[Sk8rDuck]

WAht do the Wii cards do? Like, why is target handing them out? Do you get Wii points or something?

[zachninme]

Its just a Target gift card. Nothing really to do with the Wii

[friedpope]

They're just plain old gift cards. Run to target, drop some money on one, spend it, and keep the card. They don't really have anything special to do with the Wii other than the logo, just a promotion.

[ColumbusGEEK]

What exactly is a "self thought" photographer? Anyhow, mod idea. Get some higher output LEDs and swap out the cheap ones in there. Make the thing supa dupa glowy bright.

[friedpope]

:} Guess I think of myself as a photographer. edit [taught]

[HeresyOfTruth]

Your instructable makes it all look very accessible, even from my scared of electronics point of view.

[friedpope]

Thanks for the comments on the photos. I'm a self thought photographer and I'm always trying to improve my skills. I went a little over the top for these images, you can take a look at the setup below. The camera I use is a Nikon D70s, very nice for any sort of photography.

[mrmath]

The close up of the battery is very clear. You should write an instructable on how you did that. It would be very helpful for everyone who bothers to post pictures with their instructables. (Did I say that out loud?)

[rimar2000]

The camera used here seems a good camera.

Look http://www.instructables.com/id/EI993Q6GW2ETOMKW3V/

[mrmath]

I remember that instructable now that you point it out. I was going to try it, but never got around to it.