Gabriel Bianconi

How to hook up a Wii Nunchuk to an Arduino Mega

Most tutorials about hooking up a Wii Nunchuk to an Arduino micro-controller say that Analog In pins 2, 3, 4 and 5 should be used. However, if you are using an Arduino Mega, this should be done differently. The Arduino Mega has dedicated I2C pins, which should be used to connect to the Wii Nunchuk instead. The following figure shows it should be done if you are using an Arduino Mega:

Note that this figure contains a WiiChuck adapter, but if you are using any other adapter, or even connecting directly to the Wii Nunchuk cord, it should be the same. If you are not using an adapter, the following figure shows how it can be connected directly to the controller (ignore pins in the middle):

In short, wiring should be as follows:

• Red wire: from + (VCC/power) to +3.3V (some tutorials say that +5V should be used, but this will reduce the controller life span)
• Black wire: from - (ground) to GND
• Yellow wire: from d (I2C data) to SDA (pin 20)
• Green wire: from c (I2C clock) to SCL (pin 21)

Further Resources:

• “WiiChuck” Wii Nunchuck Adapter Available – this page has a library for interfacing a Wii Nunchuk  and shows where you can buy a WiiChuck adapter.
• Read Wii Nunchuck Data into Arduino – general guide on how to get data from a Wii Nunchuk using an Arduino.
• Improvements to Arduino Wii Nunchuck Connection – this page has a different library for interfacing the Wii Nunchuk and an interesting example using Processing.

Images Sources:

• Wii Nunchuk connector image taken from wiibrew.org.
• Wiring schema generated with Fritizing.

PLUGB: The End of PLUGB

Almost one year ago, I launched a flash games website called PLUGB. After marketing it, I managed to get more than 1000 visitors daily on PLUGB. Everything seemed fine… until the school vacations in the US started.

On December 17, 2010 (the last day before the vacations), PLUGB received 1442 visitors, its record. During the vacations, it received about 100 visitors daily. That was a huge traffic drop. I thought, however, that it would recover when the vacations ended. However, the visits were back to about 800-1000 visitors for one week and then started falling again. On February, it was getting only 200-300 visitors per day. Since then, the highest amount of visitors was 588 on April. You can see our visitors since the beginning here:

But why is this the end of PLUGB? Because I sold it. The new owner is Italos from Italos Media, who also owns many other flash games websites, like GameSting. So, after one year since I started developing PLUGB, it’s over for me. But it is a new era for Italos.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing anything anymore. I’m already working on a new project and I’ll surely work on many others. I’ve already coded flash games, websites and some Python applications. The next step is (probably) a Facebook App, about which I’ll write soon.

PLUGB: Over 1000 Visits a Day

Five months ago, I created a flash games website called PLUGB. And yesterday, it broke its record and received more than 1000 visits (1172 to be exact). This is a great milestone for the website.

The number of visitors has been raising, especially during the last two months. Most of our traffic is from the US & UK (more than 80% combined). The bounce rate is about 20%-25%, which I consider good. About 90% of the visits that go to the home page play a game. This means that the website is attractive. The main source of traffic is search engines, but there are many direct visitors too. Many searches are for “plugb” or “plugb games”. When I launched the website, if you searched for “plugb”, Google would say “Did you mean: plugbr” (Brazilian computer parts store). However, Google doesn’t correct the searches anymore. Google has also added some site-links to the results page.

Regarding monetization, I am earning a more than $1 daily using BannerFlux. I like this ad network. The CPC is fairly good for this niche and all ads are game-related, generating a good CTR. If you own an arcade website or similar website, I suggest checking them out. I have also done one private ad sale so far, for $0.30 CPM. I am looking for other advertisers with the same (or better) rate.

So far, my results with PLUGB have been good. I hope that it continues growing.

PLUGB: Official Launch

I’ve always wanted to create a popular website. I’ve had many ideas, most of which failed or were forgotten. However, the idea of creating an arcade website always stayed in my mind. I finally decided to put this idea into practice and create a website filled with flash games.

Read more…