The Wii Disassembled

mrmcgeeber writes "There are two ways to take apart the Wii. The first, as demonstrated by Popular Science, involves breaking the Wii open due to a lack of tools. The second method is a more formal Wii disassembly guide, which is provided by InformIT.com. Either way, you can see some detailed pictures of the internals of the Wii and how the parts are laid out. The InformIT.com version also includes an eight minute teardown video."

Forgot another method of Disassembly

[LiquidCoooled]

smashmywii.com [smashmywii.com]!

Its full of craptastic goodness.

"Sensor array" is not a sensor array

[Matz L.E.]

It's not a sensor array, it's just LEDs emitting infrared light.
The sensor is in the Wiimote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTGSkYRDpWY [youtube.com]

Links for all consoles

[alexhs]

Where are the "related stories" ?

• Microsoft XBox 360 disassembled [anandtech.com]
  
• Sony Playstation 3 disassembled [qj.net]
  
• Nintendo Wii disassembled [informit.com] (OK, you already had that one ;)
  

And for those who don't have time, motherboards photos :

• XBox 360 [anandtech.com] (sorry not directly the JPEG, seems they rely on referer tag. Motherboard pic to the bottom of the page)
  
• PS3 [qj.net]
  
• Wii [informit.com]
  

Re:Look at the "revolutionary" technology

[DrXym]

The sensor is in the wiimote. It probably has some kind of low-res ccd that detects the light from the sensor bar and uses it to figure out its orientation. Pretty clever stuff though I expect it would be easy to confuse the hell out of it with strip lighting or sunlight.

Re:Grr - triwing screws

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Also, it may be the case that in order to get the various certifications (that CE mark or whatever it is) you need to make it so it cant be easily diassembled (I have no idea)

That's doubtful; That's what the separate power brick is for.

I think the rule is that anything that has more than 60 Volts RMS going into it has to be certified. Electronics companies avoid having to re-certify their entire devices every time they make a change by using separate, generic power adaptors.

Re:DVD drive?

[BenjyD]

It is a DVD drive, it just doesn't play DVD movies because the Wii software/firmware support isn't there.

Re:Look at the "revolutionary" technology

[LordKronos]

Yes. To be more accurate...the article has it backwards. It says the bars on the TV are IR detectors and the Wiimote has an IR output. In reality, the bars on the TV are nothing more than IR emitters, and the detector is in the Wiimote (like you said...a ccd)

Re:Grr - triwing screws

[muffen]

I hate the way some companies use oddball screws to try and stop people taking the device apart. It doesn't work - those who really want to take it apart will find the tool or improvise, and it merely annoys them. Those who don't want to take it apart wouldn't even if you used screws that could be undone with the tip of a steak knife.

... like the xbox360, where you can "make" your own tool by cutting some hard plastic, delays the opening-the-xbox360-process by an entire 5 minutes, and requires one additional tool, scissors.

I completely agree, the only thing this does is stops "kids" from opening the console, which really has no effect in the end. I guess what they are worried about is people hacking the console, which will happen sooner or later one way or another, and the people hacking it couldn't care less about the screws or even if they have to break the plastic.

With the internet, it takes just one person to show how its done, and thousands will follow. For the xbox360, there is a company selling the special tool you need, I think the going rate is around $10.

I really should just create an account...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a comprehensive video from EETimes (c/o Semiconductor Insights):

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml;jsessionid=W3LH3HBXTZ2ESQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=19 4500278 [eetimes.com]

They take apart the controller too.

Re:Curious

[DDLKermit007]

GC games require the GC controller as far as I know. Virtual Console games however all work with the Classic controller plus the GC controller and depending on the game the Wiimote can be used (mainly NES and some Genesis games). Back to Zelda!

Re:Grr - triwing screws

[Animaether]

You are also less likely to kill
- the screw head
- the screw driver

while being able to apply a great amount of force, or a set amount of force with factory tools.

For more info, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10664 [wikipedia.org]

Btw - see related topics on the Wiki.. there are a LOT of screw heads out there.

There is one common property to them, though - if you have a good quality flat screw driver, you can open all but the dotted ones (Spanner Head in the wiki, and a crazy 3-dotted one I encountered once in a greek microwave >_ we ended up drilling those out and replacing them with philips heads on a repair. ha.)

Re:DVD drive?

[Akaihiryuu]

They called it a DVD drive because it is a DVD drive. It's pretty much the same thing as the DVD-ROM in your computer. Just putting a DVD drive in your computer isn't going to give you the ability to play DVD movies, you'd have to have some sort of DVD player software. You can read the files off of the disk, but if you don't have an MPEG2 decoder, they're just going to be files. I personally don't see the need to have the Wii be able to play DVD movies. It's a game console...if I really want to play DVD movies, the local grocery store has progressive scan DVD players for $28, and these will be better for movies than any game console. It's not like it is when the PS2 first came out, when DVD players were still relatively expensive (and thus having DVD playback on the PS2 was helpful).

Re:urgent qstn

[Knuckles]

Your nickname [slashdot.org] might have been temporarily banned, possibly because you posted 4 postings within 4 days since creating your account and all 4 were sweet but useless. They were consequently moderated to -1, and some automatic Slashdot script took you for a troll and banned you. If you want to clear things up you might want to do what the message you received tells you, and email the Slashdot staff at [e-mail]. Include "Mipoti Gusundar" in the email subject.

By the way the, judging from your signature [slashdot.org] you still have problems comprehending what "offtopic" means although I already told you here [slashdot.org]. I believe you just have some problems adapting to Slashdot (or the world?) plus I have a few ties to Chennai, and so I will assume for now that you are genuine and not a very clever troll. Email me if you want to ask questions, you can find my email address on my user page.

On the other hand, the website URL on your user page has a typo ("instatute") but even after fixing it I cannot find the server. I did however find these [sapfans.com] postings [sap-forum.com] of yours where you also failed to enter the URL correctly (plus failed to make a useful posting in the first place). Hmmm, what's up with you?

Multi-layer PCBs

[PeterBrett]

Typical PCB's in production hardware like computer motherboards have I think at least 3 layers.

PCBs tend to have multiple layers, typically multiples of two. Often they are made by starting off with a sheet of PCB with copper on both sides, which is etched. Another layer of resin is added to each side, followed by copper plating of both sides, which is then itself etched. Wash, rinse, repeat (literally).

PC motherboards most certainly have multiple layers, often twelve to sixteen. This is so that the extremely large number of components required can be placed very close together and yet still be routed successfully (routing is the process whereby traces are laid out to connect components together). Indeed, on some motherboards I've seen none of the routing other than the most trivial is on the outermost layers of the PCB.

Re:Wii alive!

[arkhan_jg]

It's probably just referring to something Johnny 5 says in 'Short Circuit' - he's imitating a grasshopper and accidentally squashes it.
"Reassemble Stephanie?" is where he asks for it to be brought back to life; when it's explained that it can't be, that death is permanent, Johnny links 'his' being disassembled to a permanent end, thus leading to his resistance throughout the film to being disassembled by Nova. Johnny 5 is alive, after all!

I'll go shut up now :)