Raspberry Pi In A Wii

[CCFox]

Good Morning All

New member here...

I have been reading this forum for a week or so to get some ideas on how to place a Raspberry Pi 3B inside a Wii. I have also watched quite a few YouTube vids to get an idea on how to do this although there are none for the Wii so not all my questions have been answered this way hence I am now here. I did see a previous post by somebody stating that they were going to do this but it seems that person stopped before they started....

Having built a Pi media streamer running MoOde software previously I feel confident enough to try this. (Totally recommend!)

I have purchased a broken white Wii from ebay (99p + £3 postage). Cosmetically it is fine. I have also bought the extension cables (HDMI, power etc) to place on the back of the console. I also wish to place a microSD card reader in the SD card reader slot at the front. Also a 2.5 hard drive to store games as well.

My aim is to spray the Wii black (good video on how to do this on YouTube) and place RetroPie stickers on the sides etc. I also would like to be able to use the buttons on the front of the Wii. I have seen a video that allows a button on the console itself for accessing the RetroPie menu which I would like to be the eject button. The power and reset buttons I was thinking of using a mausberry board. And finally to finish off I was hoping to place 2 LED's (green at the top and red at the bottom).

Is this possible? If so any pointers would be gratefully received.

Kind Regards

CCFox

[Spam5192]

Hello,

I have some idea that can help you, but you posted this in Feb, and it's now May. Are you any further forwards with it.

Regards.

[CCFox]

Hello @Spam5192

I did go ahead with it and completely messed it up. All was not lost as I learnt a lot from the experience. The first thing I learnt was that Gorilla glue is not very good on a Wii....Well not for me anyway!

In order to make the extension cables fit I cut up an old pi case and stuck the cables to it and then stuck the piece to the Wii. This worked to a fashion but looked untidy. I then screwed the pi to the remaining side of the pi case and stuck that inside the Wii. Again that worked but there wasn't much room let over for the hard drive to fit in. In fact with all the cables included it just didn't sit quite right and I had to leave it loose. Wasn't very happy with that so I gave up with that project but as I said lessons were learnt. The one silver cloud was that the USB extension cable fitted nicely and so did the SD card extension cable in the Wii SD slot.

I have now tried again but this time with a Wii U. This has gone better but again not quite right. I decided to house the hard drive in a plastic 2.5 to 3.5 inch caddy and screw the pi to it. That works really well however gluing that to the Wii again didn't really work. There is however plenty of room so all is not lost. Also the new power extension cable is rubbish and throwing up the lightning symbol so that will need to be changed as well.

So the third proposal is this:

I am going to buy a clear Perspex sheet and screw the pi and the hard drive to it with stand offs. I will then cut out holes and screw that to the Wii U with enough room underneath to house the cables.

I will then buy a new power cable and fingers crossed it will work. If not I will buy a Mega Pi case and just leave it.....

Thank you for your interest.

CCF

[jackal123uk]

I'm looking at one of my Wii's I have laying around thinking of starting a similar project. I'm still in the planning phase and it all looks straight forward enough but I'm wondering about the drive slot LEDs - anyone know how to connect these up?

Being only two wires I assumed it was a simple on/off and reverse polarity to change colours. I've done some testing and it doesn't seem that simple - at least I can't get it to work but maybe I have a faulty one or maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree...

[CCFox]

@jackal123uk

I didn't get that far I'm afraid. I found the Wii was too cramped inside for me. I abandoned it and went for a WiiU. Not completed as yet....Still waiting for some parts.

My thoughts during the project were these though....The drive led is only one colour. I thought that I could connect a cable from the hard drive caddy LED to the bulb to show activity. Then cut off the circuit around it. I wasn't sure if the bulb would draw too much power though.

The power switch led is two colours. I don't know about this but I watched a few youtube vids to try and get my head around it. It's didn't help.....

Kind Rgds

CCFox

[jackal123uk]

@CCFox Thanks for the quick reply - I'll keep playing around and post how I get on in case anyone else is looking for the same.

Looking around online it appears like it might not be as simple as I thought and could be some specific conditioning to the applied voltage... I found this old YouTube video from 2010 but the references point to long gone sites:

I'll keep digging...

[jackal123uk]

For anyone else looking at using a Wii like this; I couldn't find any reliable sources for the internal dimensions so I measured and did a drawing myself. Hopefully this is helpful to someone...