Trouble with IR pointer on Wii controller

[abstrakt42]

Here's my setup,

Dolphin 5.0-19368, Win10 22H2, real Wiimote (RVL-CNT-01, non motion+), real sensor bar (rewired to use USB power supply from TV).  When using "Emulate Wii's Bluetooth Adpater" and paired with "Real Wii Remote" I can definitely get the controller to work, but the IR pointer does nothing.  Doesn't even appear on screen.  From what I've read I suspect I need to use "Passthrough a Bluetooth Adapter" but I can't quite get that going.

I tested this in a few games as well as installing the Wii System Menu 4.3U, and same symptom.  No pointer on screen. Screenshot:
(apologies, attachment didn't seem to work)
   

I've confirmed the sensor bar is definitely emitting IR using an old phone camera, and with a multimeter across all LEDs. Screenshot:
(apologies, attachment didn't seem to work)
   

Question 1: Is it possible to use the IR pointer using the "Emulate" mode with a real Wiimote and sensor bar?  If so, how?

Question 2a: Is there a way to use the Intel bluetooth drivers, in other words, as-is, to utilize passthrough on my setup?  Or do I need to essentially "disable" bluetooth by replacing the driver with libusbk? I did try to replace the driver using Zadig, but bad things happened, it never completed installation, and took me a while to revert to previous.  
Question 2b: If not, I may end up buying an inexpensive dedicated USB bluetooth adapter for this purpose, would that work?

I do apologize if this topic is beat to death, I tried my hand at searching here and didn't find the right match.  I also went to Reddit, searched there, couldn't find exactly my scenario. And as you probably know, I couldn't post there as that sub is currently disabled/restricted.

[JosJuice]

Question 1: Is it possible to use the IR pointer using the "Emulate" mode with a real Wiimote and sensor bar?  If so, how?

Yes. It's supposed to just work.

Did you wire the sensor bar to the standard 5 V that USB provides? If so, that's less than the normal voltage for the sensor bar, and I'm not sure if the LEDs are shining brightly enough.

[abstrakt42]

Yes. It's supposed to just work.

Did you wire the sensor bar to the standard 5 V that USB provides? If so, that's less than the normal voltage for the sensor bar, and I'm not sure if the LEDs are shining brightly enough.

Yes, 5v on the input side, interestingly the LEDs only show 1v across each, so I assume it's got a resistor in line before that.  Do you know the intended voltage of each individual LED?  If this is an issue, how do the ones from Amazon/ebay work, which are wired to USB?

Edit: I found a reddit article where the intended voltage is 7.5v, and some people have had luck with a 9v battery. The 1v each is due to 5 LEDs in series, each being roughly 1/5 of the input voltage. Thanks for pointing this out, I assumed 5v was enough.

Edit 2: I imagine a 5v power supply would work if the sensor itself were configured differently. 7.5v / 5 LEDs = 1.5v per LED. 5v would work, assuming each LED is wired in parallel, and an appropriately sized resistor were placed in line before each LED. Alternately, 5v / 4 LEDs would bump up to 1.25v each, wonder if that would work? Essentially removing 1 LED from each side. Now I'm just being crazy...