Fix it: Nintendo Wii Sensor Bar

This is part two of a seemingly endless series of tutorials on how to undo what your cat (or other pet) loves to do. Today’s “Fix it” tutorial covers the repair of the Nintendo Wii sensor bar and its connector cable, which can be severed by the first molars of a black cat in under two seconds.

Scenario

The cable connecting the sensor bar to your Wii has been damaged or severed. You don’t want to spend $7.50 to get a refurbished one or $20 to get the new wireless sensor bar; however, you are brave and confident that you can fix it yourself.

What you will need

This tutorial will require the same basic tools as before:

• A soldering iron
• A spool of thin solder
• A wire stripper
• Some heat shrink tubing

You can find heat shrink tubing almost anywhere. Make sure to pick up heat shrink tubing that is just a little bit larger than the cable itself, so that it will fit tightly after it shrinks.

Before we get started

Since this tutorial requires some soldering, cutting, and heating, please make sure to be safe! Nothing here is dangerous so long as you use the tools properly and stay focused.

Step 1

Your cable may look a little like the included photo when you start. If your cable is damaged, but not completely severed, you will need to cut through it.

Use your wire stripper to cut away the damaged sections of the cable before you start the repair. The connector cable will get shorter, so make sure to save as much of it as you can.

Step 2

Next, use the wire stripper to strip the ends of the cable, where you just made the cut. I recommend stripping the cable about a centimeter down from the end.

Removing the outer coating of the wire reveals the core. Two wires are intertwined with two insulating cotton threads and encased in a paper-like material.

Step 3

Remove the paper-like material with your fingers, exposing one red and one copper wire. Cut away the extraneous white cotton threads. Don’t worry, we won’t need those bits of insulation.

If the red or copper wire became unthreaded from peeling off the outer insulation, just bundle the threads of the wire together and twist it a couple of times counter-clockwise. Make sure to keep the copper and red wire separate. One is positive and the other negative (or ground), so avoid shorting the two together!

Step 4

Now that both ends of the cable have the wires exposed, it is almost time to solder them together. While the soldering iron heats up, slip a section of heat shrink tubing over one side of the cable.

The heat shrink tubing will be used later to insulate and protect the soldered wires.

Step 5

Hold the two ends of the cable side by side, so that the exposed wires are all together at the top. Now, bind one red wire to the other red wire by twisting them together. Repeat for the copper wires.

Make sure to only bind the red wires together and only the copper wires together, else you will have a short.

Step 6

Solder the copper wires together by applying solder to the bundle you made in Step 5. Repeat for the red wires.

It is harder to solder the red wires, but it just takes a little bit of extra heat from the soldering iron for the solder to start flowing.

Step 7

Straighten out the cable and direct each bundle of soldered wires to point in opposite directions.

Pull the heat shrink tubing over the exposed soldered wire bundles. Now, you’re ready to test if all your effort paid off!

Test it

Plug the sensor bar back into your Wii. Power it up and see if the pointer from your Wiimote shows up on the screen. If so, success! If not, go back and check your soldering and make sure that there isn’t a short.

Close it

Unplug the sensor bar from your Wii and make sure that the heat shrink tubing is still properly covering the repaired section. If so, use a heat gun to evenly heat and shrink the tubing until it is shrink wrapped around the cable.

If you don’t have a heat gun, you can also use a lighter, but be careful to keep the flame some distance away from the tubing. It may set on fire if it is too close to the flame.

Finale

If you’ve followed this series of steps, you have successfully reclaimed your wired Wii sensor bar! Now get back to rescuing the Princess, Mario.

You can find more photos of the process on my Flickr page.