Infrared cloning help

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maxmadx
 
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Infrared cloning help

Post by maxmadx »

I was directed via email to this forum as this could help me and others at the same time.

I want to clone the output of an infrared device *A BANNED remote control* but I am very inexperienced and looking for some help in the right direction!

There are only 5 buttons on the remote that are of interest, so I imagine have ultimately at the end of my project having a small hobby box with 5 buttons on it which replicate the signals produced from the original device.

Can you help either by explaining the facets which I would need to research for the stages of this project, and or point me in the direction of a good starting point?

Regards

Steve

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stinkbutt
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by stinkbutt »

Start with the design of the TV-B-Gone posted on LadyAda.net. It's got a good explanation of how IR signals are transmitted. You also might want to look into the USB Infrared Toy which should be able to interpret what's coming out the pie-hole of your BANNED remote control. The IR Toy's a bit of a mature product, so you're not necessarily going to be able to tell it precisely what you want it to do beyond reading those signals (it's configured to automatically play them back out, or log to a PC, or a couple of other options) but it'll at least tell you what the codes look like, and then you can later worry about replaying them, either with the toy or your own design.

maxmadx
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by maxmadx »

That looks good. Thanks very much!

Part 1: get the codes *almost complete*. IR Toy

Part 2: to be continued...

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stinkbutt
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by stinkbutt »

There are other options out there for sniffing IR signals, but it seems like the IR Toy's the most mature, and if you're just looking to build the emitter, then you don't give a BANNED how the codes are deciphered. If you do care, well, then you just need an IR phototransistor and a 'scope, like they did in the first link.

It's mostly a question of how many wheels you want to reinvent.

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opossum
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by opossum »

The IR Widget will do a much more accurate capture than the IR Toy. It uses a photodetector module, so it can determine the carrier frequency and accurately measure the carrier on/off durations. It also can use an IR demodulator module and show how bad they really perform (for capture purposes, not remote control).

If you prefer to use AVR rather then PIC, then you could hack a MiniPOV-3 to be an IR Widget.

There is also a 74HCxxx circuit and you can buy a USB version if you don't want to make your own.

The open source host software has been updated with decode and export features.

sawmac
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by sawmac »

Also there's an IR tutorial on the Ladyada site:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/sensors/ir.html

It shows how to use an Arduino and an IR sensor to read IR codes from a remote.

--dave

maxmadx
 
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Re: Infrared cloning help

Post by maxmadx »

stinkbutt wrote:There are other options out there for sniffing IR signals, but it seems like the IR Toy's the most mature, and if you're just looking to build the emitter, then you don't give a BANNED how the codes are deciphered. If you do care, well, then you just need an IR phototransistor and a 'scope, like they did in the first link.

It's mostly a question of how many wheels you want to reinvent.
Thank you for the responses everyone, a really good start. stinkbutt- you are right I dont really want to know exactly what the IR signals are, I only want the end result which is to build an emitter that is really cheap to produce which replicates all the signals by the 5 buttons on the remote control. Can you direct me down this route at all (based on the avenues posed by the others here or any other?)

Steve

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