Wii Wand of Power watchdog circuit

Fun & Games Technology
Wii Wand of Power watchdog circuit
wii_wand.jpg

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to get up to go do something, but didn’t want to leave a game for fear your system would go to sleep while you were away and you couldn’t use a software hack to nudge the system? Maker Todd Harrison had a similar issue and decided to build a device that closes a circuit every 25 seconds inside a Wiimote shaped candy tin.

It’s just a simple timing circuit made of discreet elements that engages a reed relay ever 25 sec. This relay in turn closes a circuit in my keyboard for the left arrow key. Being this external circuit is self powered I can simply turn it on when I want a game or application to think I’m at my computer when I’m not. I know there are software hacks that can do this and I did try a lot of them but this particular on line game I play had a way to block such software hacks. I had to go old school, which is not hard for an old guy, and do it with hardware.

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I make cool stuff and write about other people making cool stuff on makezine.com. If you have something you think I should see, send me a tip.

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