ByteRot :: Nintendo WaveBird Wireless Controller Receiver Teardown

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Nintendo WaveBird Wireless Controller Receiver Teardown

Device	Nintendo WaveBird Wireless Controller
Difficulty	Moderate
Time	No estimate
Steps	7

This guide is by bushing on iFixit and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0. ByteRot mirrors it for non-commercial preservation: formatting changed and photos resized for old browsers; full-size photos and the text are on the FTP in /DOCS/REPAIR. Original guide >>

Tools: Spudger; Tri-point Y1 Screwdriver

Step 1

• This is the connector side of the WaveBird receiver.
• Remove two tri-wing screws, and separate the black and gray halves of the receiver.

Step 2

• Remove four tri-wing screws to remove the connector from the housing.

Step 3

• Insert wisdom here.

Step 4 :: Controller pinout

• Red: 3.43V logic supply (pin 1 on cable)
• Brown: Ground (pin 3 on cable)
• Green: Data (pin 2 on cable, recessed by 2mm into connector)
• Violet: Shield (pin 4 on cable)

Step 5

• The PCB has a metal RF shield that protects the radio from interference from the game console; this extends the useful range of the controller.
• One half of the shield is held on with friction clips; the other half must be desoldered.

Step 6

• The IC is a custom (or relabeled) Nintendo chip marked "WCRX-DOL / T2.7488K1". ("Wireless Controller Receiver - Dolphin"). It is presumably a microcontroller that decodes signals from the radio and sends them to the console.
• This 4-pin connector goes to the joypad connector on the GameCube.
• Desolder these four points to remove the shield and expose the radio on the other side.

Step 7

• The bottom side has all the RF circuitry -- the chip is a Nintendo chip marked "WR-DOL / H2102 / CG2710 / 02", presumably the radio.
• EPCOS X6882 (http://www.epcos.com/web/generator/Web/Sections/Press/TradePress/PressReleases2003/SAWComponents/CordlessFunWithSAWFiltersPage,locale=en.html) custom bandpass filter
• Trim-pot for adjustment at the factory -- could be a frequency tweak or gain adjustment.
• The rotary switch allows the user to choose a frequency to avoid interference with other devices.
• The antenna is mounted directly on the PCB, inside the device.

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