WiiLi.org

[jln]

Hello,

I'm new here and am not quite sure this is the right place to post such a request. From reading the other messages in this section, this board looks more related to software parts of the Wiimote and my question is more about the hardware. I searched the web but without any result so far, so forgive me if I'm off-topic...

I would like some opinion concerning the hardware side of the Wiimote for a musical project for drums and electronics I'm working on. What I'd like is to place some accelerometers on the drum sticks and use the generated data in the programming environment Max/MSP to control some parameters of the sound processing. In fact, after thinking about building the sensor system, it seems that it could better to hack a wiimote since it already has the sensor and a wireless connection (not to mention that it's cheap). Since I have quite a limited experience with electronic, I wonder if it would be possible to remove the accelerometer from the board and place it on the stick. Based on some photography of the inside of the Wiimote, the accelerometer looks like a small piece of hardware so that would be nice for my purpose. Of course, it'd still need some wire between the sensor and the rest of the wiimote, but this is a small problem for the musician compared to the weight of putting a lot of electronic on the stick. How easy/hard would it be to do so ? Could it work at all ?

I'd be happy to hear what you think about this solution. Thanks in advance.

Best,
Julian.

[TiagoTiago]

unless you use at least two accelerometers per stick you would need to be very carefull how you hold it or you might risk hitting the sticks fro nothing if you move them oblique to the axis of the accelerometer

asfor removing them from the board, I don't know much about electronic modification and stuff, but I believe fyou have a steady hand and a precision soldering iron it might be possible
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[jln]

hello,

Thanks for your answer and sorry for the delay. Work kept me away from here.

So I bought a wiimote to have a test. As you pointed it out, the position of the sticks from the axis is quite a problem (I mean, i didn't remove the sensor from the wiimote yet, rather tested with it before breaking it appart maybe for nothing). I'm going to make more tests to see if I can, sort of, combine the x and y data to fix this. If not, well... I'll have to buy a Wii to use my remote...

Julian.

[SwedishFrog]

What exactly are you trying to do with this accelerometer data?

If you're trying to detect when your drum hits occur, you'd be far better off using standard tack-on-the-drumhead drum triggers.


BTW if you have limited electronic experience, ripping your wiimote apart will probably just turn it into a glossy white brick.

[jln]

I'm not trying to detect the hit - I use a piezo for this and it works fine. My goal is to find a way to generate data so the performer can control some processes before or after the hit. As a basic example, let say, the performer starts a sequence when he hits his snare drum. I'd like him to be able to control speed depending on how fast/slow he reach his drum stick. It's not a so much interesting example, but you get the idea.

Now I must admit I am a bit afraid of opening the wiimote then see in the end that all I have is a broken wiimote and no working solution for my problem... Maybe I'd better buy a ready-made accelerometer and plug it into a analog-to-usb board (Arduino board which I used in another project, for example).

[SwedishFrog]

Glovepie has lots of midi capabilities. You should check it out