Wii sensor bar wire broken or cut. Here is simple Fix I used to save 10 dollars on a replacement

The Nintendo Wii's sensor bar has a thin cable that connects it to the back of the console. despite the name sensor bar it actually contains no sensors. All it does is create two infrared spots above or below your TV. The sensor is a camera at the end of the Wii. It takes a photo of the two spots and measures the distance between them and based on a few calculations can determine if the Wii mote is pointing at any general area on the TV. You can actually light two candles and place them on the counter in front of your TV and it will work in an emergency. The thin wire does nothing more than supply electricity to the LED's ini the sensor bar that create the 2 infrared spots. That means it doesn't matter if your sensor bar is plugged into your wii or not as long as it has power.

I recently had the thin cable break and found myself without a sensor bar. A call to nintendo could have provided a replacement at about ten dollars but I had the things I needed at home already to fix my sensor bar and make it better at the same time. Here is what you need.

• An adjustable AC to DC power supply, or one that can give between 6 and 10 volts. To go completely wireless a 9 volt battery would probably work fine.
  
• A soldering Iron
• Solder
• Electric Tape
  
• a small piece of cardboard
• knife or wire strippers
  
• Camera phone or digital camera
  

Here is how I did it (I'll add pictures when I get time)

Step 1: Remove the plastic shielding from the cable going to the sensor bar. You will see two very fragile wires. These are hard to solder because of their small size.

Step 2: Cut the end off of the power supply and stripp the plastic off the end of both wires. These will be much easier to work with than the sensor wire.

Step 3: After trying several times to get a connection with the soldering of the wires I tried this and it worked first try. Using the piece of cardboard solder the power supply wires down about 1 inch apart. Then Heat the solder on the cardboard and gently place the tip of the sensor bar wire into each of the solder drops. Just the tip needs to go in. You may have to try several times to get this to work but I got it right the first try this way.

Step 4: Once both wires are connected to the power cable set the supply to 6 or 9 volts and plug it in without moving anything to see if you got a good connection. You can test it by looking at it through the LCD display on a digital camera or a camera phone. When working you'll see a bright spot on each side of the sensor bar indicating the LED's have power. If not then you didn't get a good connection and you need to heat it up and try again.

Step 5: If it worked you now simply need to cut the cardboard off of your connections, very carefully and run some electrical tape around the connection. You can now plug your Sensor bar into any outlet as far away from your Wii as you would like. I tested the bar at several voltages and it worked fine at mot of them so if you need to you can probably try another.

Step 6: Leave me a comment telling me how great I am, or yelling at me because I'm an idiot. I don't care either way but it saved me ten bucks and I like my sensor bar better now.