Wiimote Project

Hi,

That WiiMouse seems to be a really interesting idea.

At first I thought it was a wireless mouse, but it appears to be build from a wired one.

If you are considering a next step, a wireless version of your WiiMouse might be an interesting project.

You could possibly wire up the IR LED from the Left Mouse Button to the Right Mouse Button as well. The IR LED would be used for position detection only. The wireless mouse button and scroll button commands would work normally as a mouse.

Going further, a second IR LED, or other means for detecting the orientation of the mouse on the screen could be used, for precision optical tracking by the mouse itself to smooth the coarser output from the Wiimote tracking.


Thanks for your interesting post.

Hi,

Prior to your posting about the WiiMouse (which is highly original), I was thinking about some more far out WiiMouse idea.

It occured to me to convert a Wireless Nunchuk to Whiteboard WiiMouse.

The C and Z buttons would be the right and left mouse buttons. They would be wired in parallel with a transistor circuit which would turn the IR LED on when either was pressed.

The nice aspect of the wireless nunchuk is the rechargeable lithium battery. This should supply lots of power for one or more IR Leds, and it can be recharged via a USB cable.

The second nice aspect is the remaining analog X-Y joystick. There are two potentiometers with 8 bit resolution  (one per axis) which could be interfaced into a keypad, switches or a force sensor for the pen tip.  

At the moment I have basically put the two small circuit boards comprising the wireless nunchuk onto a breadboard, and demonstrated that it still works as a nunchuk.

My next step (when I feel adventurous) is to switch an IR Led from the C and Z mouse buttons. I have to learn up on some simple transistor theory but I know I can do this.

I plan to get the mouse functionality working through GlovePie.

These kinds of projects are educational and empowering, and they should be taught in school.

Also, its a wonder the Chinese manufacturers haven't woken up to converting their nunchuks to whiteboard mouse pens. Its an easy modification for them.

Thanks.