[mythtv-users] IR Transmitter

Steven Rubano srubano at ccap.net
Tue Apr 6 16:20:48 EDT 2004


> I also had absolutely no knowledge of electronics and I also have 

the SA

> 2100.  I did exactly what Dan describes above and was able to make it 

> work pretty painlessly.

 

>Thanks for the endorsement!

 

> 

> Another way to test it is to temporarily replace the IR LED with a 

> regular LED.  I took one from an old ethernet card.  If everything is 

> put together correctly, it will light up when you execute the "irsend" 

> command shown above.  Also, if you want to try it first without 

> soldering, you can use a small piece of "breadboard".  You should be 

> able to find that at Radio Shack (or any other similar 

 

>To clarify what Brian said, get a piece of soldierless breadboard; not 

>the regular breadboard.  Should run < $10.  For the wires for it, you 

>could buy the wiring kit, or hack up some old cat 5 cable.  The 

>non-stranded wire will work perfect.

> 

>-dan

 

CAT 5 cable is stranded (read soft), it won't push into the solderless bread
board. What works very well is some old solid phone cable (the cable that's
ran in your walls, not the soft kind that is going from jack to phone). 

 

I built the Simple IR transmitter (Diode, resistor, IR attached to a cable
with DB9 connector) and it works awesome with my Scientific Atlantic 4200
explorer box. What I used for an IR LED is actually cool, I took an "IR
Blaster" from a Direct TV box (basically all it is; is an IR LED molded in a
plastic housing with a wire attached to it and a din plug at the other end).
Reason why I used this was because the IR LED was housed in an "L" shaped
molded plastic housing. You applied double back tape to one side of it and
stick it on the shelf above the box that is being controlled. Since it is in
an L shape, the LED is angled in a way that it's pointing directly at the
box (I hope you guys get the idea) and it blends in (hidden if your
entertainment unit is black). I then cut the DIN plug off and soldered the
components to it and placed the components in a small project box (the box
is actually the same size as a car alarm remote) and attached the DB9
connector to it. It looks like the IR blaster was made for MythTV! I don't
know where you can buy these IR Blaster LED's from, I took it from a friend
of mine who has DTV and did not need it. 

 

One thing though for the person who is building this setup with his PVR350,
I had to run another instance of LIRC separate from the instance that was
currently running to get my PVR350 remote/receiver working. I have a write
up somewhere on how to do this if they are interested. I found it on the web
but modified it for the serial driver (the one on the web described how to
get a second instance running for the SIR driver in LIRC)

 

Steve





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