infared amplifier/splitter

[[email protected]]

I just built an entertainment center that has solid doors. We don't
want to see our equipment, not that its so hard to look at but my wife
really wants to see closed doors. I have a wireless "video sender"
which I use to play a tape throughout the house. The sender system
consists of an RF transmitter that fastens to your IR remote control
and a base unit that receives the RF signal modulated by the IR,
demodulates it and resends out the original IR signal to the
equipment. Now with the doors closed though this will no longer work.
We also want to be able to control other pieces of equipment through
the doors as well. I know that commercial units are available to do IR
extension but with all the remotes, parts and junk I have around here
I just thought I would like to try to build something to do this. My
thought was to mount the existing base unit on top of the cabinet and
beef up the IR driver in this unit to drive multiple LED's or
"emitters" in parallel.I would then sticky tape them to the
appropriate spots on each peice of equipment. Naturally I have no
schematic for the sender howeverI don't imagine the IR driver circuit
could be too complicated. Has anyone done this or is there a diy
project out there that anyone knows of in this regard? Thanks, Lenny.

 

[jakdedert]

I just built an entertainment center that has solid doors. We don't
want to see our equipment, not that its so hard to look at but my wife
really wants to see closed doors. I have a wireless "video sender"
which I use to play a tape throughout the house. The sender system
consists of an RF transmitter that fastens to your IR remote control
and a base unit that receives the RF signal modulated by the IR,
demodulates it and resends out the original IR signal to the
equipment. Now with the doors closed though this will no longer work.
We also want to be able to control other pieces of equipment through
the doors as well. I know that commercial units are available to do IR
extension but with all the remotes, parts and junk I have around here
I just thought I would like to try to build something to do this. My
thought was to mount the existing base unit on top of the cabinet and
beef up the IR driver in this unit to drive multiple LED's or
"emitters" in parallel.I would then sticky tape them to the
appropriate spots on each peice of equipment. Naturally I have no
schematic for the sender howeverI don't imagine the IR driver circuit
could be too complicated. Has anyone done this or is there a diy
project out there that anyone knows of in this regard? Thanks, Lenny.

If your Video Sender unit is the same as mine, it already has an output
(mini phone jack) to do exactly as you wish. There are stick-on IR
emitters available (google search...X10?) which glue over the IR
receiving windows of the equipment to be controlled.

I don't have the specs on how many of these units the sender (receiver)
will power, but it may be able to do exactly what you want 'out of the box'.

jak

 

[William Sommerwerck]

If your Video Sender unit is the same as mine, it already has

an output (mini phone jack) to do exactly as you wish. There
are stick-on IR emitters available (Google search...X10?) which
glue over the IR receiving windows of the controlled equipment.

I bought several of these from X10 last year, and they work. Look for a good
price.

 

[jakdedert]

I bought several of these from X10 last year, and they work. Look for a good
price.

Actually the OP and I both said 'Video Sender' when we both (I assume)
meant 'PowerMid', the infrared sender unit. Radio Shack carried them
for a while as well. They are a pyramid-shaped (the name is a play on
the shape--powermid/pyramid) plastic unit about 5" high.

I'd have to look up the newer Video Sender (2.4 gHz audio/video
transmitter/receiver pair) units, if that's what he actually meant.
ISTRC seeing that the newer units have infrared repeater capabilities.
The older ones--which I have--did not.

jak

 

[William Sommerwerck]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

Actually the OP and I both said 'Video Sender' when we both (I assume)
meant 'PowerMid', the infrared sender unit. Radio Shack carried them
for a while as well. They are a pyramid-shaped (the name is a play on
the shape--powermid/pyramid) plastic unit about 5" high.

I was thinking of the Powermid, too. The IR emitter worked fine with it.

 

[[email protected]]

I was thinking of the Powermid, too. The IR emitter worked fine with it.

Are these IR emitters just an infared LED or is there a driver circuit
built in to the emitter as well? I was thinking of just stealing some
LED's out of junk remote transmitters. Lenny

 

[jakdedert]

Are these IR emitters just an infared LED or is there a driver circuit
built in to the emitter as well? I was thinking of just stealing some
LED's out of junk remote transmitters. Lenny

Would probably work...might need a current limiting resistor.

jak

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Are these IR emitters just an infared LED or is there a
driver circuit built in to the emitter as well?

They appear to be just an LED. As there's only one jack for the emitter,
it's assumed you'd be using only one emitter at a time, so the driver would
"logically" be in the base unit.

 

[[email protected]]

They appear to be just an LED. As there's only one jack for the emitter,
it's assumed you'd be using only one emitter at a time, so the driver would
"logically" be in the base unit.

Well actually if I employed an LED for each piece of equipment and
paralleled them off the base unit then they would all try to fire at
once when ever the IR sender system's receiver is hit with an RF
signal from the remote. If the base unit driver is just set up to
drive one LED then I would overload that transistor. (I'm assuming a
small TO92 or some such thing as that). I was thinking that I might
have to piggy back a TO220 on to it perhaps to handle the 5 or 6 LEDS
in parallel. Lenny.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

They appear to be just an LED. As there's only one jack for the

Well actually if I employed an LED for each piece of equipment
and paralleled them off the base unit then they would all try to fire
at once when the IR sender system's receiver is hit with an RF
signal from the remote. If the base unit driver is just set up to drive
one LED, then I'd overload that transistor. (I'm assuming a small
TO92 or some such thing as that). I was thinking that I might have
to piggyback a TO220 perhaps to handle 5 or 6 LEDs in parallel.

You could set up an external driver, of course. I'd suggest a separate
transistor for each device -- the driver in the base unit shouldn't have any
trouble driving five or six of them.

You don't _have_ to have a separate supplemental emitter for each device --
if you can position the emitter where all the devices can see it.

 

[[email protected]]

You could set up an external driver, of course. I'd suggest a separate
transistor for each device -- the driver in the base unit shouldn't have any
trouble driving five or six of them.

You don't _have_ to have a separate supplemental emitter for each device --
if you can position the emitter where all the devices can see it.

That might be possible. I'll have to experimrent with the placement of
that. I've also noticed something else somewhat related to this
discussion. I have noticed that I can sit on the couch and aim the
remote at the windows behind me. During daylight hours the signal will
not reflect off the glass However at night I can bounce a signal off
the glass and hit my equipment with it. I know that this is definitly
a reflection because I can block the equipment's direct view with an
open cabinet door and block line of sight. So it appears that the IR
signal is "bouncing" off the glass only when its dark. If this is in
fact whats happening then I'm wondering is it merely bouncing off the
night time black glass or is it just bouncing off a black surface?
Perhaps with the cabinet doors closed will the IR bounce whitin the
dark cabinet and have a better chance of finding a target? Lenny.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I've also noticed something else somewhat related to this
discussion. I have noticed that I can sit on the couch and aim the
remote at the windows behind me. During daylight hours the signal will
not reflect off the glass However at night I can bounce a signal off
the glass and hit my equipment with it. I know that this is definitly
a reflection because I can block the equipment's direct view with an
open cabinet door and block line of sight. So it appears that the IR
signal is "bouncing" off the glass only when its dark. If this is in
fact whats happening then I'm wondering is it merely bouncing off the
night time black glass or is it just bouncing off a black surface?
Perhaps with the cabinet doors closed will the IR bounce whitin the
dark cabinet and have a better chance of finding a target? Lenny.


The glass doesn't "know" whether it's light or dark outside, and the IR
bounces just the same. My guess is that there's enough IR coming through the
windows during the daytime to "swamp" the signal from the remote.

But your idea is interesting. The closed cabinet doors might indeed provide
a reflector for the supplemental emitter. It's easy enough to experiment,
so...

Many visibly black objects reflect IR, by the way.