Use mac camera as wii sensor bar in dolphin emulator

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The setup has been working beautifully for me and am so happy that I did this. going back fruther from 14 feet and the play area narrows. A apread at 24 inches would make anything less than 9 feet from the screen unplayable (except from the sides) but at 10 feet to 14 feet you'd get a play area that is 8 feet from center either side (16 feet wide). Going past 10 feet and the play area narrows. Suffice to say, at 16 inch spread, you get a play area at 7 to 10 feet from the screen that is 6 feet from center either side (12 feet wide). I can upload a spreadsheet which is my rusty trigonometric attempt at figuring out the actual play area (distance from the screen and effective side play area) given the LED spread. Up close (which is how Nintendo set its sensor bar spread) can only be achieved by a narrower spread. A bigger spread allows you to play in a wider field but is not effective up close. An easy way is to figure out at what range from the screen you expect to play and then pick the midpoint and calculate your spread required. If I had to redo this project, I would probably probably build into each set more LEDs across so that the width of play is expanded. Given a certain distance from the screen, as you move sideways the angle perceived by the wiimote of the 2 IR points decrease. I think the limiting factor (and probably the reason why the original sensor bar has 2 sets of multiple LEDs) is the distance between the two LEDs as perceived by the wiimote. The LEDs radiate enough to get picked up from the side. I don't think the angle of the LEDs is so much the issue as the spread. For extended brightness: (6,5V Battery - 1,7V LED) / 0,03A LED = 160 Ohm. So if you want to operate the led under normal conditions it have to be: (6,5V Battery - 1,7V LED) / 0,02A LED = 240 Ohm. For example: If the normal current is 20mA and the peak is 50mA I would choose 30 or 35mA and calculate for this.

But I recommend NOT to calculate for the maximum peak current noted in the datasheet. Yes, you could use a smaller resistor to win some brightness by getting more than the 20mA Normal Forward Current.

You know.? But in this setup the led should light permanently and the peak current shortens the lifetime of your led. there it is also necessary to use the peak current because when the led only lits up shortly, for the eye it seems that it lits darker than normally so by using the peak current you bring back the brightness. It is mostly used to build up some multiplexing circuits where the led only lits up for a short time but frequently. The peak current is only good to use for a short amount of time.

You shouldnt use the peak current for your calculations because they have to lit up constantly. I've attached a spreadsheet to calculate the right width that the LEDs need to be spaced apart for any given play distance. Once complete use a digital camera to see the IR light and check that your connections work. For example, if you choose to use a 2 x AA battery pack for this LED, you'd need a 56 ohm resistor. If you have any other type of LED, your resistor requirement would change. I had a 4 x AA battery pack so that required a 100ohm resistor for each. The LEDs I was able to obtain were 1.7 forward voltage with a peak current of 50mA. In the end, my electronics store had a limited selection anyway. I was aiming for brightness in the IR spectrum and some research had shown that LEDs with a lower 850nm wavelength produced higher degrees of brightness than the higher wavelengths. Thus, a quick trip to the local electronics store yielded me 2 infrared LEDs, 2 battery holders and 2 resistors and 8 AA batteries. To do that, I wanted two IR LEDs that could be easily repositioned. My requirements was that I move the Wii around and needed flexibility on the actual play distance. Following the DIY sensor bar initially created by Doctabu, I created one of my own. Since I use a front projector setup, this required wiring together a solution that allowed the sensor bar to be placed anywhere (and overcome the 10 ft wire extension distance) and also extend the range of the play. This could've been due to the actual width limitation of the bar or the strength of the LEDs. I've found that the included Wii sensor bar wouldn't allow me to play games far enough away.

Use mac camera as wii sensor bar in dolphin emulator