Wiimote Project

hello all,
I'd like to start by thanking everyone for what is going here, it's really a fantastic project.
now for the cry for help. I've been trying to get the wiimote white board to work on my laptop for 10days now with no success.
i'm on a macbook pro dual core 2ghz, with mac os X 10.4.
connectivity is fine usingthe apple native bluetooth. the wiimote is on a camera stand and can be angled with precision. the IR pen i built works fine. I first thought that it might have been the pen so i bought different IR Leds (no radioshack here), and tried with this as well but there was no improvement. my problem is that the calibration never works. it's either all the dots calibrate at once, and then the pen is crazy, or nothing. i've managed to calibrate two dots precisely, but can never get the bottom ones to work. i've tried different wiimote angles, distance from the screen, positions left and right (i'm left handed), correcting the LED position, hiding it partially, exposing it totally ( it's at the tip), basically copying the IR pen designs i'd found only but nothing works properly. i don't have a video projector to test it in a different manner ( it's used at the moment).

i don't understand what is happening. is my led too strong or too weak ? is there something wrong with my screen ?
basically the only thing that works is wiggling the pen in the air near the camera, and even then it's not precise, ie i can't get it to properly use the test area. the surface recognised by the wiimote when i point the pen towards the sensor is very restricted, even when i move the wiimote back.
the camera often detects more than one dot, which made me think that the LED was too strong, so i tried more distance, angles and covering the tip. i've also tried in dark environments.
would somebody have any ideas on how i should proceed from here ? i'm really stuck.

thanks in advance

ben

Your IR pen may not be working correctly.  I have the same type of mac and it works fine for me.

Open iMovie and view yourself with the pen.  Press it a few times so you can see the tip of the LED.  The camera can view IR (it appears orange/red).  If the clicks produce short pulses of light, it's working fine.  Otherwise, that might be your problem.

Hope that helps,
James

hi and thanks for your answer. I actually have an infrared modified webcam, the pen is working fine ( i've tested it on the built in webcam and on the IR cam). I'm thinking it might be a voltage / IR led power issue. maybe it's not strong enough or too strong.
i used an IR led from a remote and powered it up with 3 button cells which were in an led pen. I've tried with other power sources, AA and AAA batteries. i really don't understand what might be causing this. since the calibration is either impossible or on the contrary too fast, it's hard to guess if the IR led is too strong or too weak.

b