Hacking I did something very stupid.

[JuanMena]

So, I've been playing around with laptop batteries... and I did me a "power bank" with scraps.
And I've been having this stupid idea of repurpose a battery for my Wiimote.
So I opened my Wiimote and noticed that the bottom terminals are soldered with just one pin, meaning that it's just a (+) and (-) solder point.
And I jokingly added a usb cable to them and noticed that indeed the Wiimote worked with the power bank.
And after that, I was like: "Cool!"
Forgot about it.

Suddenly, my Wiimote didn't worked with AA batteries.
I panicked!
Tried many different AA batteries I had around and nothing made my Wiimote turn on again.

So I tested a power bank again, and turned on normally.
And I thought that maybe I fucked my Wiimote to accept voltage higer than 3v.

So I soldered a USB cable, and connected the cable to a USB on the back of the Wii... and my Wiimote turned normally.

Then I left it as it is and tried other AA batteries and my Wiimote turned normally.

This means that all my AA batteries are dead and I thought that soldering a USB killed my Wiimote and it was only working with USB.
But no! Now my Wiimote works with AA batteries AND USB cable.

WTF?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

So, I've been playing around with laptop batteries... and I did me a "power bank" with scraps.

Please remember that unprotected Li-ion batteries are dangerous.
I hope you know what you are doing and I hope the individual cells have their own protection circuit, rather than relying on external one only.
Don't do anything really stupid.

Tried many different AA batteries I had around and nothing made my Wiimote turn on again.

For alkaline cells a simple voltage measurement is a usable indicator. Of course it is missing any load and not an accurate reading for remaining energy, but measuring the voltage with a multimeter should be the first thing to do with batteries (some multimeters might offer 1.5V and 9V battery testing applying a small load) for the measurement.
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I'm surprised the Wii Remote accepts 5V for operating… but I wouldn't normally do/recommend it. The DSi for example shuts down when exceeding 4.3V or 4.4V on the battery terminals – which is in fact a good idea.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[JuanMena]

For alkaline cells a simple voltage measurement is a usable indicator. Of course it is missing any load and not an accurate reading for remaining energy, but measuring the voltage with a multimeter should be the first thing to do with batteries (some multimeters might offer 1.5V and 9V battery testing applying a small load) for the measurement.

Please remember that unprotected Li-ion batteries are dangerous.
I hope you know what you are doing and I hope the individual cells have their own protection circuit, rather than relying on external one only.
Don't do anything really stupid.

I had two power banks, both old, outdated and without use for literally years. Literally... never used them until yesterday.
One out of two, didn't charged the battery.
Tested the battery with the other power bank that works and it didn't charged, so I'm guessing that the battery is dead.

I repurposed the circuit of the broken power bank to make a "power bank" with a bunch of laptop batteries. Here's a video.

Of course I know that I mustn't connect a li-ion to the wall plug, that's just common sense.

For alkaline cells a simple voltage measurement is a usable indicator. Of course it is missing any load and not an accurate reading for remaining energy, but measuring the voltage with a multimeter should be the first thing to do with batteries (some multimeters might offer 1.5V and 9V battery testing applying a small load) for the measurement.

I know, I know. Thing is I don't have a multimeter, and the cheapest one is very basic, like literally just measures batteries voltages and I'm needing one with more options such as continuity and what not. Unfortunately, those are 5 times the price of the basic one and that ain't cheap.

I'm surprised the Wii Remote accepts 5V for operating… but I wouldn't normally do/recommend it. The DSi for example shuts down when exceeding 4.3V or 4.4V on the battery terminals – which is in fact a good idea.

Maybe it doesn't? I'm not sure how much voltage the Wii outputs.
But something's for sure is that the power bank that works, does output 5volts and the Wiimote works with that.

Maybe it's currently dying for because I'm feeding it a higher voltage and it's just a matter of time before it burns s component or something, maybe not.
Maybe it's meant to wirk with 5v or ecen more and Nintendo decided to put a bridge rectifier to make AA batteries last longer?
I'm sure I'd know the answer by measuring the input voltage in the Wiimote with a multimeter, but again, I don't have any

 

[VinsCool]

"I did something very stupid"
Please tell me something I didn't know already

 

[JuanMena]

Here's the power bank that works, the one that didn't is identical and repurposed the circuitry to the laptop batteries.

Oddly enough, Wiimote won't work with repurposed laptop power bank, but will work with the one in the video.
And again, the Wii's USB is feeding my Wiimote.

Post automatically merged: Nov 21, 2022

On a sidenote, the Wiimote speaker makes a high buzzing sound with USB.
So maybe I could try find a USB cable that outputs 3volts?

Post automatically merged: Nov 21, 2022

I'm reading in other site that someone's done this before. Had the same ossue with speaker making a buzzing sound. Turns out that it's because it can't handle the over voltage and the maximum voltage it accepts without issues is 3.7v.
So above that is ruled out unless custom transistor+resistor to lower 5v to 3v.
I'm glad I'm not the only stupid around.

Tomorrow will totally desolder the USB, besides it's showing issues with the pointer disappearing and reappearing at all times, thought it was my Sensor Bar sensitivity but I guess that's another issue related to over voltage.

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ well I learned something ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯