Wii U: Create your own y-cable for bus powered USB hard drives

[kanageddaamen]

As everyone knows, the Wii U supports external USB hard drives for storing your didgital data.

What you may not know is that you may have an issue using a drive that is bus powered (ie, does not have its own power cord)

***FOR THE TECHNICALLY INTERESTED, OTHERS FEEL FREE TO SKIP***

Bus powered drives became more possible with the advent of USB 3.0.  The new spcification allowed for increased amp output which allowed for things like physical motors to be powered via the USB cable.

The problem is,USB 3.0 is backwards compatable with USB 2.0, but USB 2.0 provides limited current output for these devices.  The Wii U uses USB 2.0.  This can cause issues if the amp draw gets too high for USB 2.0 specs, effectively depowering the device, resulting in system instability.  

To resolve the issue, a Y-cable uses 2 USB ports, providing 2 voltage sources in parallel, doubling the ame output potential

Externally powered devices have no issue

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For most bus-powered drives, you will probably need what is called a Y-cable (not this is different from a Y-adapter, or splitter, so be careful)  Many drives will come with them, so if it did, no need to continue reading.

They are easy to find online, but usually run about 10 bucks, and are very easy to make for anyone who has ever stripped and taped a wire and has spare USB cables about.  I have made one for my drive and it is working perfectly

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: By making one of these cables, you are doing so at your own risk and are solely responsible for any damage caused by it

With that aside all you need is:

A wire stripper
Electrical tape
a USB cord with a type A end (standard USB end)

either:
A USB cord with a male type A end and a female type A end

or

A USB cord with a male type A end and an ened that can plug into your device.

I was going to make a second and take pictures and whatnot, but I found someone who already did that.  So just click below:

(OVERVIEW: Strip back the casing of the Male-female cable, cut red and black, connect red and black from 2nd cable, tape, done)

http://xkeydownloads.com/tutorials/Make_a_Y-Cable.pdf