Wii Nunchuck Adapter

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introWii Nunchuck Adapter

This tutorial is for all those people who have an arduino and want to use there Wii nunchuck as an input device, but dont realy feel like cutting open the cord and ruining the nunchuck FOREVER!!!!!!!!

well youve come to the right place!

Wii Nunchuck Adapter

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step 1Supplies

These are the supplies you will need
most can be found at radioshack and at hardware stores.
if you cant find any etchant solution i made my own on STEP 6.
+ iron
+scisors
+tape
+soft gloss photo paper
+arduino
+wii nunchuck
+LED's
+brake cleaner
+etchant solution (is makeable, see step 6)
+double sided PCB .062" thick (you do have a bit of lee way)
+solder
+hack saw

Supplies

51GKCJ553PL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

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30 comments	Add Comment

Nov 27, 2009. 4:38 PM

Solarbotics says:

These are cool - our intern Jerome developed a version too. It has notches for the locking tabs, and a pass through so we can play with our BlinkM at the same time on the same port.

http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=1081

Jun 21, 2010. 7:46 PMmat_the_w says:

Solarbotics: Any chance you could open source the layout for your design? I'd like to re-use your awesome connector including the locking tabs in a larger open-source hardware project, but couldn't track down your layout files. Thanks!

Jun 22, 2010. 10:38 AM

Solarbotics says:

Can do - gimme a few to compile and upload them to the website.

Apr 29, 2010. 1:36 PMkeler says:

Thank you!
(your sense of humor highly appreciated :)

Nov 28, 2009. 11:14 AMJonas412 says:

A simpilar and cheaper way of doing this would be to plug in wire into the little notches at the end of the connector. The connector pins are like this.Look for wiichuck they have a library. Nc and Att are not used.
Clk NC Gnd
__---__---__
__---__---__
Pwr Att Dat

Nov 4, 2009. 2:36 PMAlexCendejas says:

Hey guys, I have a little problem, I guess someone may be able to help me. I followed all the instructions and used the same code, but when I try it, the LED's connected to the digital output pins barely light on... It doesn't happen with any other programs,, any ideas?

Nov 9, 2009. 6:33 PM

todbot says:

dany32412's sketch doesn't set the pinMode of the LED pins, which sounds like the problem you're seeing. Add:
pinMode(Lledpin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(Rledpin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(Uledpin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(Dledpin, OUTPUT);
anywhere in the "setup()" function and see if it makes a difference.

Also, I see no current-limiting resistors in his circuit. Some LEDs work fine without them in certain situations, but most will burn out or have greatly reduced life. (and you might damage your Arduino too) Be sure to add a 220 ohm resistor in series with each LED.

And thank you RazorConcepts and JohnPark for the clarifications. FunGizmos.com does indeed stock my Wiichuck adapter for $4, and that includes the 4-pos pin header needed and free domestic shipping.

Nov 14, 2009. 8:57 PMAlexCendejas says:

I hadn't logged in to instructables until right now and this morning I realized what you say about the 'pinMode's. Didn't try it because I was in a rush, but I did use the resistors since the beggining... I'll try setting the pins as outputs right now, because I already tried using a different power supply for the nunchuck and it didn't make a difference. Thanks!

Nov 14, 2009. 10:20 PMAlexCendejas says:

I tried it and it actually worked, sounds logic... So the code needs to set the pinMode for every output in order to work fine...

Right now I'm working on a project for school, I'm making a Nunchuck/Arduino controlled mechanic arm, it has 3 DC motors for moving the base and 2 parts of the arm and 1 step motor to control the gripper. I might upload my own code, along with a video and pictures of the arm itself, maybe even write an instructable about the whole thing. The code was based on this one but more complex. This is my first time using Arduino and I liked it, I'll see what else comes to mind.

Thanks to everyone! :D We'll be in touch.

Nov 15, 2009. 10:33 AMdany32412 (author) says:

great im happy that worked out for you. that would awesome if you could post a video.

Nov 6, 2009. 7:24 PMdany32412 (author) says:

are they dim or are they not turning on, cause so do mine im thinking it has something to do with the circuitry in the nunchuck.

Nov 7, 2009. 1:43 PMAlexCendejas says:

They are really really dim, I have to turn off the lights and look at them from above in order to see the difference between being on and off... I can see them turning on and off when I tilt the nunchuck but they're too dim. Have you found any solution? have you tried maybe powering the nunchuck with an external power source? I'll try it and see if it makes any difference.

Nov 7, 2009. 6:24 PMdany32412 (author) says:

yeah probably powering it with and external source would be the answer, no more than 5 volts from what i understand thats pushing it. try pluging it into a bread board and connect the 2 data cables the same way but connect 3v to power and gnd to gnd. not sure if that will make a difference cause im not sure of what voltage they have the power set at when it connected directly ontop of the analog header. tell me how that works out

Nov 13, 2009. 11:35 PMwindrago says:

super!
and I loved the comments on the pixes :-))

Oct 23, 2009. 2:57 AMRazorConcepts says:

Original idea:
http://todbot.com/blog/2008/02/18/wiichuck-wii-nunchuck-adapter-available/

You can pick one up for like 3 bucks, they work nicely.

Oct 23, 2009. 11:41 AMdany32412 (author) says:

yeah, but this is for the people who dont want to pay 10 dollars shipping just for a little tiny pcb board, and it was kinda a learning experience for me and now i make all kinds of pcbs

Nov 9, 2009. 11:41 AMJohnPark says:

Also check out Fungizmos, they ship them for free, so it's just $4. http://store.fungizmos.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=212 (full disclosure, I'm friends with both Tod of ThingM and Will from Fungizmos). I believe in both making your own and buying one; whichever works better for you!

Oct 24, 2009. 9:23 PMRazorConcepts says:

True that, the only reason I even bought one because I was already making an order at SparkFun!

Oct 22, 2009. 12:50 AMfagnelli says:

Nice and detailed post. I was wondering whether you could post the PCB traces in some sort of image file (pdf, jpeg or similar)? It would be a lot easier than installing a whole PCB design suite I won't use again.

Thanks

Oct 27, 2009. 11:26 PMicecreamterror says:

I Have Put a PDF copy on my blog http://icecreamterror.wordpress.com/

Oct 28, 2009. 1:51 PMdany32412 (author) says:

how thanks that was awesome of you ill add it to the instructables

Oct 22, 2009. 12:02 PMdany32412 (author) says:

hmm i suppose but then it would be hard to print it all to scale with what ever program you choose to use, which is why you use diptrace. it does it all for you!
thanks for the positive comment

Oct 25, 2009. 12:34 PMmatstermind says:

the download link doesn' work for me, is there any chance you could pst the file in the instructable?

Oct 25, 2009. 12:45 PMmatstermind says:

NM

Oct 24, 2009. 8:45 AMicecreamterror says:

Any chance of the PCB layout in a image form like PDF, for all the Mac users?

Just a scan of your A4 print out would do the job, as then the scale is kept at A4.

But really nice work (no way id pay $13 for a tiny PCB, the best thing about arduino is that is OPEN source.)

Oct 25, 2009. 7:04 PMdany32412 (author) says:

i guess that could work ill look into that.

Oct 21, 2009. 12:19 PMLuminousObject says:

Cool, but how thick is the board that you used? I don't want to buy a board and then find out that its too thick or too thin.

Oct 21, 2009. 2:34 PMdany32412 (author) says:

good point i added that to the instructable. but its basicly the standard 0.062".
thanks

Oct 21, 2009. 4:02 PMLuminousObject says:

Allright, cool.

Oct 20, 2009. 8:12 PMcopycat42 says:

on one hand, i really care little about the "arduino " projects. i recognize them as being fun for someone who is into that sort of thing, but not really my bag. on the other hand...

HOLY CRAP! that's awesome! a way to have fun with at your hobby without permanently damaging the equipment for it's original use. kudos!

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