WIRELESS Wii BAR + CHEWED USB = NO MORE $$ BATTERIES!!

So My cat, whom I adore, decides one day that my iphone wire looks delicious....

AND NOW I AM LEFT WITH A MANGLED MESS OF A PHONE WIRE!

on the other end of things, our rabbit decides the flimsy Wii Bar wire looks like something he should chew in half...so this has left us with no choice but to purchase another one. We opt for the Wii Wireless Bar. At first... ITS GREAT! No wires, no hassle, works great and all.

BUT as the weeks woudl go by we realize we have gone through a huge pack of Kirklands best AA batteries... :(
aside from feeling enviromentally guilty, i feel the need to find a cheap/free/quick easy power source fix

and there it is... a USB port just begging to use the 5V .05a its supplied...and guess what 4xAA's = 5v!

Step 1: Materials and Steps 1&2

Gather your materials:

1) Cat/Dog/Rabbit/ Spouse chewed USB cord, (as long as most of the cord is intact you should be fine.)
2) Wireless Wii Bar, destroyer of batteries...
3) Small philliips screw driver
4) Wire stripper
5) Heat shrink tube (various sizes)
6) Solder Iron/gun
7) Solder
8) Electrical Tape

Step one:
If the animal has not severed the iphone end of the cord, cut it off and strip the wire about 8 inched to expose the 4 smaller FRAGILE wires underneath.

Step two:
Clip the WHITE and GREEN  wires ( these are for data transfer, the RED and BLACK are pos. neg. respectively)

Step 2: Heatshrink and Open Her Up

On to step three:

Since there are chew marks up and down the wire I decided to heatshrink the entire wire from the USB plug to the wires:

Thread the wire through the heat shrink tubing and ...shrink! be careful not to burn through the wiring...becuase then you will need to chew up another USB wire yourself.

I purposfully did not shrink the end closest to the open wires so that I could slip a smaller diameter heatshrink tube under the larger one....it made a tighter fit.


Step four:

Open Her UP!!

On the underside of the Wii bar, you will find 6 black rubber feet.. 2 in the center 2 on the sides...
ALSO in the battery compatertment there are 3 more tiny screws... dont lose'em!

Step 3: Look at the Guts of the Wii Bar

Dont get squeemish..

Wii Bar Guts!!

Step Five:
Flip it over, gingerly pull the housing apart. Be carful of the front blueish plate.


Step six:
Feed the wires through the middle, between the two pattery ports. and extend them to the negative and positive ends.


Step seven:
Using electrical tape...mine is blue, I dont remeber where i found it, but I have red and white too...hmm..how patriotic
- tape the fed wires down to the housing using the elctrical tape. LEAVE THE END UNTAPED SO YOU CAN WORK WITH THE WIRES DURING SOLDERING!!

Step 4: Tiny Welding Time!

Step eight:
Hope you have been getting your soldering shoes on...

slide the battery ends out of the negative and positive end. I am keeping these intact so if ...for what ever reason... i decide to waste more batteries... i can still use them.

Step Nine:

Solder the positive lead to the positive battery terminal...keep it as clean as possible so you can slide the terminal back in place.
----do the sam eto the negative end!!

After your tiny weld job, slide the terminals back into place, and NOW finish taping down.

*** sorry..it takes two hands to solder so no pics of that part...but according to the pictures...i need more practice.

Step 5: Wire Access Point... and Reassembly

Step TEN:
Since we have added a wire that didnt exist before...there is no access point for said wire sooo...make one.

I started by using a small triangular file...but that wasnt large enough...so i MELTED a round hole using my still hot soldering iron...tada!


****Snap everything back into place, find your tiny screws and screw them back in, reattach your black rubber feet....
and plug this baby in to a USB port in your TV or Cable box... or ?***

Comments

[clay.in.co]

I did exactly the same thing a while back (https://www.instructables.com/id/Wii-Bar-Cordless-No-More/). For a place to plug the USB into, why not the Wii itself?

[ZaneEricB]

Since the bar connects wirelessly to the Wii, I keep it in a closet down the hall way. So I reduce the clutter around the tv. I ran rcas to the closet/hdmi so now all I have is the tv and the remote sensor. Nice and neat.

[miskie]

Excellent. My kids have the same wireless Wii bar, and I've been using the mountain of dead AA batteries to build a zombie-proof fort for the coming undead apocalypse. Anyway, I never understood why there isn't a prefabricated jack on the unit for a common 'battery eliminator' and I was thinking of kludging one in. I might do this instead, as I have a ton of old USB cables with uncommon connectors for cellphones I no longer own.

[miskie]

I finished my conversion, and went 'down the middle' with it. Instead of going with USB, or with a battery eliminator, I chose to use an old USB wall charger for a Motorola RAZR that's been sitting in a drawer for a few years. Thankfully, my cat hasn't eaten the cable, so, it didn't need to be rewrapped. Other than that, I followed your guide. As for the battery fort, I have three kids who supply me with dead batteries every few days. So, I should be okay ! Thanks again for this !

[ZaneEricB]

VERY NICE!
another note....not sure if you ever noticed, but the controller would not be as responsive as the batteries became weaker....

Thank you for this...it makes me feel like i helped somebody!

Show me some more!!

[ZaneEricB]

THANKS!

We though it would be a great purchase but quickly realised the cost of batteries would soon outweigh the fanciness of a completely wireless wii bar.

Plus I figured these unused USB ports have the power surging to them all the time....why not use this "free" energy...

a prefab jack would have been nice...but it would have likely be a wall plug...i wish these manufacturers would be smarter and install a prefab universal USB port in these types of electronics....especially becuase nowadays alot of TVs or cable boxes etc have un used USB ports...

You may not want ot give up on the batteries though...especially if your battery fort isnt complete yet!

[Dipankar]

A job well done.............