Hacking DRE Pot Adjustment Video

Digger

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Hi,

Here is a video on how to get to the laser adjustment pot on the Wii. This *may* solve DRE problems.

Have a play and report any success or failures in this thread
smile.gif


Please remember to be subtle with the adjustment, 1/16 turn at a time, and remember the original position of the pot should you need to go back to the start.

The pot is fragile, so don't go at it hammer and fist
smile.gif


Wii Pot Adjustment
 

kdanarch

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Yeah I dont know what he was doing exactly but I am not going to try it.

*shakes his head* I just modded the thing and finally got all the bits and pieces back together. At this point, DREs only make me take out the disc and put it back in again every hour or so.

I'm interested to see how this goes, but I may not ever make such an adjustment.
 

niklasnyfiken

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Digger

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People asking questions should not be going anywhere near a Wii with a screwdriver.

The video is showing a simple way to get access to the drive pot. Only people who know what to do with a drive pot should attempt to do anything with it.

If you don't understand the meaning of the video, STAY WELL AWAY!
 

ds_barf

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People asking questions should not be going anywhere near a Wii with a screwdriver.

The video is showing a simple way to get access to the drive pot. Only people who know what to do with a drive pot should attempt to do anything with it.

If you don't understand the meaning of the video, STAY WELL AWAY!


haha actually i also thought this was a video of someone trying to adjust a post, but now i see that it really only is the way to GET to the pot
biggrin.gif


For the folks who don't get is, keep looking at the spot Digger shows in the picture; when the guy in the video is turning the motor, that spot changes from 'black hole' to 'pot meter';)
 

mattwasx

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This is very similar to what was suppose to fix some dre's on the ps2 when you started getting them. I did it with my ps2 and it fixed it for a little while but then started to get them again. So this is probably just a temp fix.
 

Digger

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Ok, a little laser theory for you to clear up a few misconceptions.

The laser pot adjusts the current that reaches the laser, this is like a little light, the more current it gets the brighter it shines.

The laser light is reflected off the disc and picked up by the pickup, if the disc has a pit, the light does not reflect, if there is no pit, it is reflected back. Constantly reading the 1's and 0's reflected back from the disc creates the data used by the console.

Burnt DVD's are less reflective than pressed discs, this is due to pressed (original) discs using a silver reflective surface, whereas burnt media uses a purplish dye (usually) which does not reflect the laser back as clearly.

The laser's power on the Wii is turned down so it has quite a weak light, this added to the poor reflectivity of burnt discs causes the pickup to not pickup the pits on the disc properly. This causes the DRE errors.

Someone mentioned that this was a temporary fix for PS2's, this is not the case with the Wii. Lasers do start to fade after a while, if your console is quite old and the laser is starting to fade, then a bodge to revive the laser is to turn the power up. This is only a temporary solution, as the laser is in the process of dying and you can only turn its power up so much before it eventually gives up.

Wii lasers are brand new, and so, full of life, it's just that they do not enough current to reflect back correctly from burnt media. Adjusting the Wii laser is not a temporary solution, it's permanent. Make the laser a little brighter and burnt media will be detected properly.

You can put to much current through a laser, which will shorten it's life, hence the adjustment of 1/16 of a turn and try a disc thats giving you errors, if this does not work try another 1/16th of a turn.

If after a couple of turns there is no improvement, you could be turning the laser pot the wrong way making the laser actually dimmer. Go back to the original position and try the opposite way.

Hope this clears up people misconceptions.
smile.gif
 

SeaHawk22

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Yeah I dont know what he was doing exactly but I am not going to try it.


*shakes his head* I just modded the thing and finally got all the bits and pieces back together. At this point, DREs only make me take out the disc and put it back in again every hour or so.

I'm interested to see how this goes, but I may not ever make such an adjustment.


My point is the video shows nothing, a picture would have been suffice. Also this is "not to you" but I think people need to get off their high horses about modding, I have limited soldering experience but its not like this is open heart surgery.
 

96hondaex

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Yeah I dont know what he was doing exactly but I am not going to try it.


*shakes his head* I just modded the thing and finally got all the bits and pieces back together. At this point, DREs only make me take out the disc and put it back in again every hour or so.

I'm interested to see how this goes, but I may not ever make such an adjustment.


What chip are you using that is giving you the DRE's?
 

Abstract3000

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hey Digger
Ok so I know how to adjust the POT but i dont like the idea of going off of 1/16 turns and hoping, do you know where you might put the pins on a Voltage meter to read the current in effort to see exactly what your adjusting it too? someoone once mentioned Nintendo set it around 635?
 

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