Joytech Wii Power Station External PSU

Posted by foobar2k Saturday, 14 April 2007 19:59

I just got my Joytech Wii Power Station charging unit for my Wiimotes today, and although the power cable connection is ingenious, it is also inflexible. The docking station gets its power from a passthrough connector which attaches to the back of the Wii, meaning your docking station must be very close to your Wii, which is not ideal for many layouts. This simple guide explains how to connect the Wii power station to an external power supply, allowing it to be plugged in anywhere with an electrical socket nearby.

Tools:

Soldering Iron
Wire Cutters
Wire Strippers
Multimeter or continuity tester

Materials:

Joytech Wii Power Station
12v power supply ~700mA (Ebay or spares)
Solder
Heatshrink or Electrical tape

Instructions:

Firstly, check if your 12v power supply has the same size connector as the one on the Power Station's adapter. If it is, then you don't even need to do anything further! Just plug in the power supply and you are done. Here is the power supply I used. It is from an old (broken) battery charger, so is ideal for these purposes:
The next thing to do is cut the old connector off the power supply. Cut about an inch from the end, and make sure to save the old connector as it may be the perfect size for a future project.
Now strip the outer insulation off the end of the power supply wire, and strip a few millimetres from the end of each of the internal wires. On my power supply the +12v wire was insulated, then surrounded by the strands of the ground wire. Here's what mine looked like:

Sometimes it is not obvious which wire is +12v and which is ground, if you are at all unsure, use a multimeter to check, or work it out by using a continuity tester or multimeter on the old end connector.
Now do the same with the connector on the Power Station cable. On this cable, white is ground and grey is +12v. Here's mine:
Now join the new connector to the power supply's wire, making sure to join the +12v and the Gnd wires to the correct place. Solder them together and cover the connections with heatshrink or electrical tape. This is what mine looked like once it was completed:
Now hook your new frankenstein power supply up to the Power Station and test!
Now you are finished. Hopefully it all works fine and looks good. Once I'd positioned my Power Station you couldn't tell that it was using a hacked up power supply: