Modifying the TV-B-Gone Kit

[pmconway]

I'm trying to help my friend who is a quadriplegic in a nursing home. He can do nothing for himself and spends most of his hours in his room watching a TV over which he has no control. We built him a switch so he can transmit an electrical signal if he just touches his thumb to his fist. Is there any way the TV-B-Gone Kit can be modified to send out just one code to a TV. So that, when my friend activates the switch, it can send an electrical signal to the Kit which, in turn, will send out a signal to the TV to increase the channel number by one.

Any help or any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Trish

[adafruit_support_bill]

It would be possible. But it might be simpler to add your switch to an off-the-shelf programmable remote.

[pmconway]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I thought about an off-the-shelf, But they are so complex and involve a lot of software was thinking it'd be a lot harder to figure out where to input a signal and then how to get just one particular code out. So, that's really my question - if/how the TV-B-Gone Kit could accomplish that.

Thanks again.

Trish

[adafruit_support_bill]

The TV-B-Gone will run through all the 'off' codes in it's programming when you press the button. So to modify it you would need to wire your button in place of the standard one, then replace the list of 'off' codes with the 'channel advance' code for the television in question. If you want it to work on several different televisions, you could include the banned advance codes for all the ones you want it to work for.

This pagedescribes how the codes work and where to get them.

[pmconway]

Thanks so much, arduwino. that looks really promising!

Trish

[z3ds]

You could get an off the shelf universal remote then just put a switch on the channel up button

[mkanoap]

I'm all for modifying the tv-b-gone like this (I'm working on a similar "push one button to do something") hack, but programmable remotes do not have to be complicated.

http://www.weemote.com/

Just to provide you with options.

On the other hand, hacking the tv-b-gone might give you more flexibility. Depending on how much control your friend has, maybe you could have it cycle up when he presses and releases, and cycle down when he holds it for some reasonable time.

In addition to the tutorial on how put in different codes referenced above, I found http://www.ladyada.net/learn/sensors/ir.html useful for gathering the needed data without having an oscilloscope.

[Paulc1]

How do you access the "OFF" codes in TVBG to change them, and then how do you do the change in the firmware?

Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

The codes are defined in the firmware which is available here: http://www.ladyada.net/make/tvbgone/download.html
The method of building the code tables is described here: http://www.ladyada.net/make/tvbgone/design.html

[Paulc1]

Way over my head for a "Non C Programmer". Any Instructables out there showing step by step how this process is accomplished?

Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

We do have a tutorial on IR sensors and decoding in general. http://learn.adafruit.com/ir-sensor/overview
We don't have a step-by-step specifically for modding TVBGone codes.

[Paulc1]

Quite familiar with IR tutorial and Arduino IDE in general. Weak on C and AvrDude. Can open and modify TVBG in notepad. Lack in recompiling an reloading sketch after mod.
Thinking of loading, modding, saving and recompiling sketch in Arduino,then reloading chip using Arduino as ISP. Will that work?
Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

I don't think you can compile it in the Arduino IDE. It expects things to be structured as Arduino sketches.

[ButWeige]

Rather valuable answer

[Paulc1]

Going over the code of TVBG I note the mention of printing out the code with:
DEBUGP(putstring.... )
Just wondering if there is a way of retrieving the code of a TV once triggered by TVBG through Serial monitor in order to use that code in another IR decoder/ sender gadget I'm working on.
I am unable to grab the code of certain remotes using the IR tutorial and was wonding if there was a way around.

Thanks