3D Printing, Gaming

Wii Remote Light Gun With Pistol Sights And Trigger Spring

Posted by Marlon Lopez on

This Wii remote light gun version includes gun sights and a modified trigger that allows the addition of a pen spring for improved trigger action. With the gun sights, you can turn off those pesky onscreen crosshairs; for games that natively support that feature.

For the games that don’t support it, you can use an emulator to get rid of them. It’s true that the removal of crosshairs will make the games much more challenging, but if you like to go in hard in everything you do, then this is for you my friend.

I went McGyver on this design, and decided to use springs from a common household pen.

This mod adds four new parts to the original gun light design. The parts include; a rear sight, front sight, trigger and a spring from a pen. I designed the new parts to be printed separately from the light gun’s base, because it was both convenient and economical to do so at the time. I already had four light guns printed and simply wanted a way to line up my shots without using the onscreen crosshairs.

With the base light guns already printed, I just needed to print the new parts and glue on the rear,  and front sights to the Wii remote light gun base. For an improved trigger response, I modified the trigger part to accept a spring from a common household pen. With the spring installed and the trigger part sanded down, the trigger action felt more precise.

The Wii remote’s B button can push the trigger part on its own, but in my experience it felt a bit sluggish. It was for that reason that I added the additional spring. The original light gun base is a nice design because it is easy to 3d print, rigid and saves filament. If you are interested in the unaltered design, you can find it at thingiverse by the user Benni12er.

The House Of The Dead 2 allows players to independently disable the crosshairs. This is cool, because it allows me to go in hard during co-op play, while my son can play in an easier mode.

Once I had the 3d parts assembled and working smoothly, it was time to test it with my son’s favorite light gun game; The House Of The Dead 2. I owned the Dreamcast version of this game with the light gun, so I had a good idea how the experience should feel. This game offers the option to remove the crosshairs from within the game options screen. This feature makes it easy to turn them off or on and independently for each player.

Calibrating the Wii remote can be tricky at first. What worked for me was, aiming the light gun at a slight clockwise angle in the bottom right corner (during calibration screen), in order to get it calibrated correctly. It took a bit of trial an error to understand how the game adjusts the crosshairs depending on where you shoot during the calibration process. Once correctly calibrated, its pretty sweet.

In a game like Ghost Squad, where the calibration screen didn’t let me shoot the bullseye due to the Wii remote’s camera not seeing the LED bar. A slight tilt to the light gun and shooting the bullseye as soon as the “Aiming out of bounds” text disappears from the screen, while aiming as close to the bullseye is what eventually gets calibration set. In this game, the top left, top right, and bottom left  corners line up almost perfect with the three dot aiming sights on the light gun. The bottom right corner however, jumps around a bit but has not affected gameplay.

When its all set and done, my aiming sights look like the image above. I wish there was a way to set it and forget it, but with these types of light guns, its just the nature of the beast. Every component plays a part, from how high the LED bar is in relation to the light gun, to the distance from the LED bar to the screen. Keep that in mind as you move around in the gaming area or when you change players with different heights; you will have to re-calibrate the light guns.

When I have more time I will look into a couple of things that could be affecting the calibration process. It could be the way I’ve mounted the LED bar on top of the TV, or it could be the bulk of plastic in the front of the Wii remote holder that is blocking the camera. I plan to redesign the front of the light gun base to see if I could remedy that problem. For now, it is just a minor annoyance.

The game Gunslingers does not let you turn off those pesky crosshairs! However, “load custom textures” via an emulator will removed them for all players.

Finally, a game like Gunslinger does not let the player remove the onscreen crosshairs. For games like these, the only option is to “load custom textures” via an emulator. Using this method, will remove all the crosshair pointers from the games you choose.

More photos of the Wii remote light gun with
three dot sights and spring trigger:

3D design format: STL

Filament Material: PETG

Resolution: .2mm

The 3D STL file can be downloaded for FREE from:

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About Marlon Lopez

I enjoy collaborating with artist, photographers, designers and gear heads. I find inspiration while driving the most perfect driving roads imaginable in California. I have experience in print design, web design, advertising, corporate identity, brochures, printed directories, direct mail, interactive design, and 3D printing. My design solutions emerge from a comprehensive design process, and a understanding of my clients needs.

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