MAKE: Blog: Wii-mote guts

Wii-mote guts

Wii-Remote-10
Wii-Remote-7
Our pals @ Spark Fun Electronics cracked open a Wiimote, check out all the photos and parts list... (You'll find a Bluetooth IC, IR sensor, vibratory motor, speaker, triple axis accelerometer, an I2C EEPROM, and a range of passives. Not bad for $55.)

"I promise. No more 'Wii' jokes. My brother sent me the link to www.WiiHaveAProblem.com featuring all the damage caused by thrown remotes, which sparked my interest in how the Wii remote worked. I had to tear one open! This new gaming system from Nintendo is the first maker to really flood the market with a triple-axis accelerometer with Bluetooth connectivity. Simple right? We've had this for a couple years now. Checkout the our WiTilt product. It featured the MMA7260Q, the first commercially available tri-ax chip from Freescale connected with a Bluetooth module for wireless accelerometer sensing. Nintendo made it so much more fun...

My apologies for the large pictures causing the page layout to crunch. It's more important to be able to read the IC markings!" - Link.

Related guttings:

Wii gutted - Link.
PS3 gutted - Link.
Zune gutted - Link.
Xbox 360 gutted - Link.
PS3 (Playstation 3) controller & iPod shuffle 2.0 taken apart - Link.
Take apart a Nintendo DS in 13 minutes (video) - Link.
Sony Reader Internals 2.0 (pics!) - Link.

Posted by Phillip Torrone | Dec 18, 2006 02:07 PM
Electronics, Gaming | Permalink | Comments (2)

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: japroach on December 18, 2006 at 5:07 PM

"Normally, engs de-rate capacitors by 50%. So if the circuit runs at 5V, you need at least a 10V cap. Following that logic, this cap must sit on a 1.8V bus, but 3300uF?"

not quite, you will routinely see 16V caps on 12V lines and 6V caps on 5V lines. Thats about 20-30% which fits right with 4V on a 3.3V supply. Not that its being used for that purpose of course.

but i still have no idea as to why they would use such a huge cap.

Posted by: PeteP on June 25, 2007 at 1:44 PM

The purpose of the cap is simple: to provide continuous power if the battery connection is temporarily broken due to large accelerations of the Wiimote. Think of it as an on-board UPS.

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