How to wire a Wii's Bluetooth Module to a PC USB Port

[mstreurman]

(06-08-2019, 08:02 AM)Dylanlip Wrote: Would you be willing to sell any bluetooth adapter boxes only w/o the bar? I've got a larger sensor bar for my TV and have no need for another one.

Absolutely, do you need them with the components or just the box? Because I'm still waiting for my shipment from China.

[Dylanlip]

Preferrably with the components. My hands are too jittery for soldering right now.

[myscha]

(10-28-2018, 11:33 PM)josivan88 Wrote: I did it!!! i made a integrated Sensor Bar and a Wii bluetooth to use as passthrough, that work only with a USB power, and it works fine! thanks by the instructions in this forum. here are the schematic:

Just for documentation: likely this doesn't work very long. It's never a good idea to wire LEDs (or diodes in general) in parallel. It would be better to place one 160ohm before each LED pair, see the following draft:
   

[AnyOldName3]

What problems are there other than everything going down if one LED blows?

[myscha]

(06-30-2019, 11:35 PM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: What problems are there other than everything going down if one LED blows?

None. But your sensor bar will be completely down in the end. Not a single LED will light any more. I just don't think that people are happy with this result.

[AnyOldName3]

Personally, I'd prefer if the whole thing went down so I knew I needed to fix it rather than one LED dropped out and left me with a zone where the tracking was worse for no discernable reason. Really, though, if you're connecting your LEDs up sensibly, they shouldn't die anyway. I think I made my (non-bluetoothed) bar in 2011, and it's been plugged in the whole time since without dying.

[myscha]

If you place 3 more resistors likely no LED will ever die, so there's no need to know whether it happened. And it doesn't matter how sensibly you connected or soldered the LED. It's just physics.

Are your LEDs lightning all the time? 24/7? Connected exactly as in the draft? Then you are a lucky guy.

To explain what happens:
You have 4 parallel lines with 2 LEDs in each line. Due to manufacturing variations one of those 4 lines will see a slightly higher current than the others. Through the higher current these 2 LEDs will get warmer. When they get warmer the current through them will further increase (what will increase warming, what will increase current and so on). In the end at least one of the two LEDs will die. When this happens the remaining 3 lines will see 33% more current and the game begins again until the next LED dies. This will happen faster than before. After that the remaining two lines will see 100% more current than at the beginning and again one LED will die. Again this will happen faster than before. The last remaining line will see 400% of the initial current and another LED will die, unless the 400% current is still below the maximum LED current (I doubt it is).

As soon as one LED in a line dies, the other one gets dark, too. Depending on how the first one in this line fails (short/open), the second will also die or just be dark. Maybe the whole process takes some time, depending on the on-time of the sensor bar, but it in the end it likely will happen. It won't if each line has its own resistor.

In my opinion anybody who wants to assemble this should know about the risk and the simple solution.

You can find more about this topic there
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/22291/why-exactly-cant-a-single-resistor-be-used-for-many-parallel-leds
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/174584/is-it-ok-to-put-leds-in-parallel/174590
and on many others sites in the net.

[AnyOldName3]

I don't even have resistors - I've got a diode and three LEDs in series per-side, and the two sides are in parallel. The diodes cause enough voltage drop that the current is sufficiently limited. However, I do have a 3m USB cable, and that's going to be adding some resistance, too.

If your LEDs are rated for 20 years of continuous operation at a certain voltage and current, you shouldn't worry about them dying if your circuit is within their spec. If you need to spend another 5 pence on another LED in twenty years, it's not worth the effort to use more resistors and more complicated wiring.

[myscha]

That's your opinion and that's ok. But your setup also leads to a different situation. Up to now we were talking about one resistor for multiple parallel LEDs. We shouldn't compare apples to oranges.

My opinion is: if I spend time to build something, I build it in a way that it works as long as possible. And I don't want to search for an error a couple of weeks/months/years later if I can avoid that hassle by mounting one component more (1 in your version, 3 in the draft above). I don't mind the 5 pence for another LED, but I do mind the time it takes to find the error and repair it. And I assume that the average user here is not an electronics engineer and has problems to find the error then. So why should they take that risk?

But you're right: in the draft above and in your version you are well within the specs. And that leads to another possibility if you absolutely want to avoid components: reduce the resistance to 40-50% (60-80ohms instead of 160) and remove 2 LED lines. This way you will only have 6 components instead of 9 and you'll achieve the same results.

[DolphinUser]

Do I need the sync button or can i trigger the sync with the button in Dolphin when using this for Bluetooth passthrough ?