Is my sensor bar broken?

Coral Beef · 05-11-2012, 12:38 AM #1

Hey Dolphin, i just got my wireless sensor bar and my nunchuck in the post today.
I was super eager to test it out, so i plugged it in and of course, i had problems.
My sensor bar won't work properly. I have adjusted the distance from it plenty and only one thing worked. That was, if i put my wiimote's IR sensor RIGHT up close to the left part of my sensor bar.
I then looked at my sensor bar and it seems there's 2 sets of lights. 1 set of 3 lights on the left, and 1 set of 3 on the right.
If i put my wiimote close to the left part, it does work, but very close up and very "jolty" and inaccurately. Then i tried on the right side and it didn't work at all. Nothing moved.

Then i tried 2 candles, putting them as far apart from eachother as the 2 sets of lights are and it worked perfectly, just how i wanted it to.

Does this mean ALL 3 of the right hand side bulbs are not working?
I also tried the old camera trick to see IR lights. But i couldn't see anything, even on the left hand side.

Could it be possible that it's the batteries? The batteries are AAA and kinda a pain to buy. It came with 4 batteries, but the batteries seemed used and had literally been taped together (That's eBay for you) and one of the batteries is duracell, while the other 3 are kodak... Could it be possible that it's the batteries?

Another note, i have two wiimotes and both of them have identical problems.

Any advice would be useful!
Thanks Dolphin.

**admin89** · 05-11-2012, 02:05 AM #2

The distance between wiimote and sensor bar should be 3 feet or 1 meter . I use original one btw , it has 5 LED each side

Coral Beef · 05-11-2012, 02:15 AM #3

(05-11-2012, 02:05 AM)admin89 Wrote: The distance between wiimote and sensor bar should be 3 feet or 1 meter . I use original one btw , it has 5 LED each side

That sounds about right for the candles, but that won't work at all with the wiimote.

Tomkun · 05-11-2012, 10:15 AM #4

Sounds like it is broken. The easiest way to check for sure is to look at it through a digital camera. You should be able to see the LEDs lit up then.

(05-11-2012, 02:05 AM)admin89 Wrote: The distance between wiimote and sensor bar should be 3 feet or 1 meter . I use original one btw , it has 5 LED each side

That sounds too close... I have to be at least 2.5 meters away from the TV to get any hint of accuracy. It all depends on the length of the sensor bar and the size of the TV.

**admin89** · 05-11-2012, 11:18 AM #5

Nintendo Sensor bar range is about 3 to 10 feet (1 to 3 meters) . I guess those unofficial sensor bar are different in range
Besides , my laptop screen is small , i have to sit close to it or i can't see anything

Tomkun · 05-11-2012, 11:24 AM #6

There was a formula on a website I found that helped to work out the correct distance. I am using an unofficial sensor bar and a 40" TV so I have to stand farther away.

Here is the site with the distance calculator:
http://www.davidhawley.co.uk/WiiSensorBar.aspx

I hope it's not against the rules to post this link.

**AnyOldName3** · 05-12-2012, 01:10 AM #7

Mine works from 60cm to 2.5m. It may work further than that, but there's a wall in the way, so I have no idea.

Tomkun · 05-12-2012, 01:13 PM #8

They will work at any range that the wiimote camera can see all of the LEDs at the same time and they are bright enough. The range is more to do with accuracy; i.e, is the wiimote pointing at exactly where the cursor is on the screen? This is not important a lot of the time, but when playing a lightgun game for instance it becomes very important.