# Wiring for the Wii



## Moony_Lupin (Apr 11, 2010)

I'm preparing to run wires for my theater room and my wife and I love our Wii. The only concern is the sensor bar that must be beneath the TV or projector screen. This is causing me to place the Wii console beneath the TV (not in the control room), so I am planning to put 3 RCA jacks beneath the TV that will run through the wall to the TV. This will keep things looking clean.

I guess my question is, are there additional jacks that I should place on this wall plate? The Wii doesn't support component or HDMI, but should I wire those in just for future possibilities? Would a PS3 or XBOX be able to be in the control room (about 15ft away, seperated by one wall) and still function properly?

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.

Also, (rather than double posting) can you guys lead me to any information on some conduit that is somewhat flexible/bendy?


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## Moonfly (Aug 1, 2008)

If I am correct, the sensor bar is simply 2 IR LED's at a set distant apart. The cable simply powers them. If you can find a way to power it you wont need the Wii near the screen, and shouldnt need the sensor bar connected to the Wii either.

Another option could be to get hold of a couple IR LED's and simply place them under your screen and power them somehow (power requirements are minuscule). It should also be pretty straight forward to test it and cost would be minimal.

I think that is a much easier option than running in all the cabling for the Wii itself.


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

You have a couple of options.

One, you can get a wireless lightbar for the Wii and the unit itself in the gear rack. 15' should be okay for the remotes. I got my lightbar at Parts Express and it runs on AA batteries.

Or your original plan would work. I would make a 6x single gang plate for component, stereo rca, and a single for digital or composite video (or even IR distribution). You can be flexible with it.

Parts Express, Monoprice, and Best Buy sell Wii breakout cables for comonent video. That's how I have mine run in the projector room. I think the cable and lightbar were only $30 total.


Home Depot and Lowes will carry a flexible tubing in either blue or orange. Affectionately called Smurf tube (for the blue stuff) -- it is easy to cut and bend and they sell adapter collars for the low voltage boxes and wall plates. Either go with 2x as many pipes as you need, or get bigger than you think you will need. They fill up fast. For 6 coax lines, I would go with 2, 3/4" tubes minimum. If you can find 1" tubing, I would get 2 of those. If you need smaller for turns or openings, do 3, 1/2" runs of tube.

Also, put an extra pull in the tube (nylon cord is good, I avoid anything cotton for fire-safety reasons). This way if you have to pull a Cat5 cable or Super HDMI 5.x in the future, you already have the pull available. This assumes the pipes are not jam-packed, though.

Some of the tubing is made by Carlon. If you can't find the size you need, google it, and I think CableOrganizer or CablesToGo resell some of the odd sizes. You have to buy larger amounts, though.

Best of luck.


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## Moony_Lupin (Apr 11, 2010)

First off, I did not realize that the Wii sensor didn't have to be plugged directly into the Wii. That was eye opening and led me into some great info on the net.

I'm not too interested in having to use batteries for the wireless sensor, so I'm investigating a way to simply plug it into the wall outlet and be able to switch the sensor on and off. If I could pull that off, then I'll have exactly what I'm needing.

Thanks for the help guys.


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## kenp2600 (Nov 30, 2008)

You could always go with rechargeable batteries if you can't find a wireless Wii sensor that uses a power supply.

Also, I wanted to mention that my XBox 360 is in the equipment closet about 20 feet from my seating area (outside of the room and across the hall) and the controllers work fine at that distance.


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