B4R Question IR Led's that I have tried

[Robert Valentino]

I'm working this IR project and tried a bunch of different IR Leds. Most did not have the range I wanted.

I tried these (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-Way-2-Channel-IR-Infrared-Transmitter-Sensor-Module-LED-Indicate-for-Arduino/153543598761?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649)

They just didn't have the distance (3.5 meters max)


Then I came across these (https://www.analysir.com/blog/product/sendir-advanced-infrared-emitter-module/)

GREAT Range / Wide Angle and good price $10.00 - AND they come setup to be daisy chained.
The picture shown is not correct they come with 3 pins soldiered on and 3 extra holes to daisy chain. I did notice they way they are made you can flip a second 180 degrees and slide it into the holes and have them facing back to back. I have a LR that has a high ceiling and is 36 x 24 and it seems to cover everything. Still testing.

Include the PDF Specs for them.



Just figured I would share.




PS: as a side note. Finally got the IRSend::sendPronto code to work. Once I have finished testing will upload.

 

[miker2069]

I'm working this IR project and tried a bunch of different IR Leds. Most did not have the range I wanted.

I tried these (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-Way-2-Channel-IR-Infrared-Transmitter-Sensor-Module-LED-Indicate-for-Arduino/153543598761?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649)
View attachment 93678They just didn't have the distance (3.5 meters max)


Then I came across these (https://www.analysir.com/blog/product/sendir-advanced-infrared-emitter-module/)

View attachment 93679 GREAT Range / Wide Angle and good price $10.00 - AND they come setup to be daisy chained.
The picture shown is not correct they come with 3 pins soldiered on and 3 extra holes to daisy chain. I did notice they way they are made you can flip a second 180 degrees and slide it into the holes and have them facing back to back. I have a LR that has a high ceiling and is 36 x 24 and it seems to cover everything. Still testing.

Include the PDF Specs for them.



Just figured I would share.




PS: as a side note. Finally got the IRSend::sendPronto code to work. Once I have finished testing will upload.

Wow good find. I had a IR recorder project a couple years back,it worked but had to have line of sight and I had to over drive IR transmitter (push more current beyond no spec for more transmission power).

So your getting what range like 25 feet ?(sorry stuck in USA with crappy old English measurement system)

 

[Robert Valentino]

You are right. That should have been feet (not sure I even got that much) - didn't realize I said meters.

On certain devices. NOT sure completely why. Need more testing The SendIR (and my Mitsubishi TV wasn't responding like it should) but DirectTV, a Matrix switch box and Amp all work very nicely from accoss the room which is 20+ feet.

Have been sidelined with other things (I am sending commands to the ESP from my Android devices and the client server code sometimes gets stuck - hit the button 5 times in a row and nothing happens on the ESP then all of a sudden it gets every command and then sometimes it works just like it should - hit a button ESP gets the command - trying to figure out why)

But hope to get back to this next week and I will post "actual measurements" not quess-ter-mations

 

[miker2069]

That's pretty good. I was building an IR remote control recorder and play back (record the IR codes into a MySQL DB). I tied the codes to a specific device (an esp8266 w/ IR receiver) and the "play back" was over wifi to the device and then blasting the IR - A B4R/B4J/B4i combo - I think similar to your setup. At the time I wasn't really paying attention to the specs of the IR transmitter and I think I didn't properly bias (set it up for optimal transmission). Line of site was always an issue for me as I would like to locate the device accross the room and have it blast to my TV, sound system, cable box, etc. I think the IR transceiver you found may do the trick and I'll have to dust it off and revisit.

 

[Robert Valentino]

Yes I am doing something similiar. I have a old Phillips Pronto Pro TSU-6000 that I love. Got a program from RemoteCentral.com that let me convert a pronto pro ccf into a file I could parse. Wrote a BJ4 program to parse the file and pull out all the codes. Then I manually updated some of the codes key names then another B4j program that takes the codes file and generates a ircodes.dat (the actual pronto codes in hex form) and writes a bunch of basic files that are program I use to send the code just a bunch of functions that know the offset and length of every code in the ircodes.dat file.

By doing this when let's say I want to send the power key I call cTV.Power_On which send 8 bytes (2 longs) to the B4R program the B4R program uses the 8 bytes to position and read the ircodes.dat file and reads in the hex codes from the ircodes.dat which is on a flash card. So this way I am only sending a few bytes for each key I want to press.

I am really want to be working on this. But tied up all my chips on these LED stars I made and waiting for some others to arrive.

If you think any of this might be helpful to you let me know. Attaching the ProntoCode_Modified.txt which is input to make the ircodes.dat and generate all the Device programs (cDirectTV.bas is on of my devices - NOTE: the whole cDirectTV.bas was generated by a B4J program)

 

[miker2069]

Pretty much we have the same thought process of storing IR codes and just sending a small key (your case and index into the Pronto file) to identify the IR code to blast. I found that sending the raw IR codes took way to long and that storing the code on the esp8266 in spiffs was faster. In my case I stored the each code in a spiffs file. For instance for my upstairs TV, I would store the power on/off code in a file called "code-uptv-on" and for volume control "code-uptv-volup" (you get the idea). I then took it a step further and created a "batch" file which wrapped up multiple codes. For example if I wanted to control the upstairs TV and turn the volume up by pressing the volume up key 5 times (vs repeatedly sending the volume up command 5 times, which was slow to me), I created a batch file called "bat-uptv-volup5" which was a comma delimited string of the code names (which were the filenames on spiffs). I also stored the batches on spiffs. So I could just send the "bat-uptv-volup5" batchname to the esp8266 and then the esp8266 would load the batch, parse to the individual codes, and the send the appropriate IR codes. This also worked great for channels as well. I would store a batch file called "bat-uptv-espn" and it would send the key presses for ESPN. That worked awesome (once I got it all working). I suspect you could do something similar with the indexes into your pronto file.

In any case awesome stuff