Hello there,
I'd like to permanently hang a Wii nunchuck from a birdfeeder in the garden, in order to get a continuous feed of the motion of birds landing.
Can anyone please advise on the practicalities of:
weather protection (keeping dry etc)
wiring - can I extend the nunchuck wire and connect it to the Arduino board when it gets in the house? Or should both be placed outside, with the USB wire extended into the house. The distance is probably about 10m. Or would a wireless option work?
all the other things I probably haven't thought of yet...
Apologies if this is covered already in the forum.
A good general rule is to keep sensor wires as short as possible, so I'd use a long USB cable as opposed to a long nunchuck cable. There is a maximum theoretical length for USB cables, it's in the specification. I'd bet though that even if 10m was outside the maximum, it'd still work, especially if it's one continuous cable as opposed to lots of smaller ones plug in like extension cords.
Having the USB cable long though means the arduino needs to go outside, so it too needs to be weatherproofed. I'd go for a plastic lunchbox, with a hole drilled in the side and the cable secured through it using hotglue.
Are you planning on modifying the nunchuck (casewise) or leaving it as is?
I was planning to keep the nunchuck as it was - I have no idea what mysteries it may contain or what damage I may do taking the case off. I can imagine it would make it lighter though, which may be useful - is that why you ask?