IR Blaster (progress)
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Any one tried using IR transmitter to send IR signal to AC with mini pro ( 328p ) as mysensor node. I know mini pro have limited ram / rom support.
Note: AC remote send long IR signals which may not be completely captured by IR receivers connected to mini pro. may be one try on rasp pi but that's a last resort.
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My wife and I were in Italy for the past 3 weeks with friends and family so I didn't have much time to work on the IR Blaster actuator. That said, the long flights back and forth from San Francisco to Italy afforded some concentrated time to finalize the design sufficient for public review before procuring a few prototype boards. To goal of this post is to solicit said feedback so "bring it on" after reading the details below.
@Sparkman - The biggest change is the addition of two more IR LEDs given we are now driving the circuit with a MOSFET (thanks @tbowmo) that can handle higher-current loads; this reduces the risk of IR coverage holes and increases the IR LED component options. However, I have not added a barrel connector for external LEDs to the PCB (yet?) because there are still open issues regarding circuit design to accommodate it (would welcome integration ideas).
I also have not laid the traces for A0, A1, and A2 because these are completely optional inputs, the 3 traces are difficult to place given the physical PCB layout and in fact they may not survive the final board.
Everything is in GitHub in case people want to review the details offline.
The PCB design follows - I had to increase the size of the PCB slightly to accommodate the two additional LEDs.
Here are two renders of the board, sans the radio daughterboard:
Finally, here is the version 0.4 schematic.
I have also developed a MySensor's IR Sensor Array that will enable me to measure the IR radiant intensity from different points in a room under varying ambient lighting scenarios. The test scenario is that an IR Sensor Array controller will illuminate the IR Blaster and then broadcast to all the IR Sensor Nodes to collect an IR measurement over a specified interval and report the IR level results back to the Sensor Array Controller at which point it will turn off the IR Blaster IRs and log the sensor node results for analysis. This should allow me to select IR LEDs to ensure maximum radiant luminosity without any IR coverage holes/gaps across the 180 degree radiance field. As an interesting side note, the development of the Sensor Array found a messaging limitation in the current MySensors.org library that @hek is planning to address in the next major release.
Ciao,
Bruce@blacey said:
@Sparkman - The biggest change is the addition of two more IR LEDs given we are now driving the circuit with a MOSFET (thanks @tbowmo) that can handle higher-current loads; this reduces the risk of IR coverage holes and increases the IR LED component options. However, I have not added a barrel connector for external LEDs to the PCB (yet?) because there are still open issues regarding circuit design to accommodate it (would welcome integration ideas).
Sorry for the slow response Bruce, it's been crazy busy at work and a few projects around the house. I have a few days off in a row now so will finish testing. The circuit board design looks great and I'd be interested in a few as well based on current design.
Cheers
Al -
@ServiceXp said:
@blacey Really lovin this.. You plan to sell?
If there is enough community interest and demand, we (@hek et. al.) will offer the IR Blaster in the same fashion as @tbowmo's pioneering and very successful Sensebender Micro and hopefully in-development Gateway Device that I am personally jazzed about. Any proceeds from IR Blaster hardware sales will go directly to supporting the MySensors.org project (monthly hosting fees, etc.). So to answer that question we need to know who else would buy one if we make it available so we can estimate the batch size for an initial run. Anyone interested is encouraged to weigh in here.
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@blacey said:
@Sparkman - The biggest change is the addition of two more IR LEDs given we are now driving the circuit with a MOSFET (thanks @tbowmo) that can handle higher-current loads; this reduces the risk of IR coverage holes and increases the IR LED component options. However, I have not added a barrel connector for external LEDs to the PCB (yet?) because there are still open issues regarding circuit design to accommodate it (would welcome integration ideas).
Sorry for the slow response Bruce, it's been crazy busy at work and a few projects around the house. I have a few days off in a row now so will finish testing. The circuit board design looks great and I'd be interested in a few as well based on current design.
Cheers
Al@Sparkman said:
Sorry for the slow response Bruce, it's been crazy busy at work and a few projects around the house. I have a few days off in a row now so will finish testing. The circuit board design looks great and I'd be interested in a few as well based on current design.
Al, no worries, I know the crazy busy drill! ;) I hope the work and home projects went well - let me know what you determine based upon your testing.
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First board revision just arrived from the fab house in China! Boards look good other than the MySensors IR Blaster v0.5 that I placed in the solder paste layer instead of the silk screen layer because the font is too small. Unfortunately the fab house was quicker than I because I haven't even had a chance to finalize the BOM and order the components. Need to get that in gear so I can assemble the first board early next week.
Top of Board
Bottom of Board
Board with radio set and LED for relative size perspective
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First board revision just arrived from the fab house in China! Boards look good other than the MySensors IR Blaster v0.5 that I placed in the solder paste layer instead of the silk screen layer because the font is too small. Unfortunately the fab house was quicker than I because I haven't even had a chance to finalize the BOM and order the components. Need to get that in gear so I can assemble the first board early next week.
Top of Board
Bottom of Board
Board with radio set and LED for relative size perspective
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First board revision just arrived from the fab house in China! Boards look good other than the MySensors IR Blaster v0.5 that I placed in the solder paste layer instead of the silk screen layer because the font is too small. Unfortunately the fab house was quicker than I because I haven't even had a chance to finalize the BOM and order the components. Need to get that in gear so I can assemble the first board early next week.
Top of Board
Bottom of Board
Board with radio set and LED for relative size perspective
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Any one tried using IR transmitter to send IR signal to AC with mini pro ( 328p ) as mysensor node. I know mini pro have limited ram / rom support.
Note: AC remote send long IR signals which may not be completely captured by IR receivers connected to mini pro. may be one try on rasp pi but that's a last resort.
@Dheeraj said:
Any one tried using IR transmitter to send IR signal to AC with mini pro ( 328p ) as mysensor node. I know mini pro have limited ram / rom support.
Note: AC remote send long IR signals which may not be completely captured by IR receivers connected to mini pro. may be one try on rasp pi but that's a last resort.
Not yet but take a look at http://www.analysir.com/blog/2014/03/19/air-conditioners-problems-recording-long-infrared-remote-control-signals-arduino/ for a good explanation of what you are probably experiencing. From a hardware stand-point, the IR Blaster should be able handle the longer IR codes, it will just be a matter of adding the required support to the firmware.
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@Dheeraj said:
Any one tried using IR transmitter to send IR signal to AC with mini pro ( 328p ) as mysensor node. I know mini pro have limited ram / rom support.
Note: AC remote send long IR signals which may not be completely captured by IR receivers connected to mini pro. may be one try on rasp pi but that's a last resort.
Not yet but take a look at http://www.analysir.com/blog/2014/03/19/air-conditioners-problems-recording-long-infrared-remote-control-signals-arduino/ for a good explanation of what you are probably experiencing. From a hardware stand-point, the IR Blaster should be able handle the longer IR codes, it will just be a matter of adding the required support to the firmware.
@blacey Thanks. I have not seen this in my searches. looks promising. I'll give their sketch a try and see if it records the codes properly (as far as I can say). all other libs failed miserably.
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Hmm.. If a IR recorder is included in the sketch, how would you handle different carrier frequencies of the remotes?
It could be anything between 35Khz and 40Khz (or 400Khz if it's B&O equipment), and IR receivers are made with narrow filters. This could mean that if you use 38Khz carrier frequency on equipment that originally uses 35Khz, then because of the attenuation in the filters, the range is very low.
Ideally we need something to detect the carrier frequency as well.. But don't know if that is possible to obtain easily with an arduino setup
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@Dheeraj said:
Any one tried using IR transmitter to send IR signal to AC with mini pro ( 328p ) as mysensor node. I know mini pro have limited ram / rom support.
Note: AC remote send long IR signals which may not be completely captured by IR receivers connected to mini pro. may be one try on rasp pi but that's a last resort.
Not yet but take a look at http://www.analysir.com/blog/2014/03/19/air-conditioners-problems-recording-long-infrared-remote-control-signals-arduino/ for a good explanation of what you are probably experiencing. From a hardware stand-point, the IR Blaster should be able handle the longer IR codes, it will just be a matter of adding the required support to the firmware.
@blacey said:
using IR transmitter
I have gone through this link, and tried it recommendation of increasing the RAWBUF size and also used sample sketch which was not working for me , may be i was doing something wrong. Also, It uses raw IR signal and handling raw signal is not simple compare to IR hex code which are at max 32 bits. I wish IRlib, IRemote etc support handling of long IR signals. Any library which support it?
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@blacey said:
using IR transmitter
I have gone through this link, and tried it recommendation of increasing the RAWBUF size and also used sample sketch which was not working for me , may be i was doing something wrong. Also, It uses raw IR signal and handling raw signal is not simple compare to IR hex code which are at max 32 bits. I wish IRlib, IRemote etc support handling of long IR signals. Any library which support it?
@Dheeraj Alas, AC codes are not hex codes as far as I know. they have to be used in raw mode. This whole IR thing is very confusing but from what I gather:
there are several standard encodings (they are like bar code) that are compatible with binary encoding in the sense that the gap and length are constant so no signal in the period can be 0 and signal can be 1. However, when you want to put more information more quickly (or when you just want to annoy people) you use non standard encoding that is comprise of several lengths of silence and transmission. naturally this is a much more "dense" encoding and if you know the protocol you can easily convert it to short codes. However, we don't and I know of no library that can encode for all AC. every AC and sometimes even different models have different encoding. most of the work that was done was made in the area of home theater so all those codes are known. AC is still a no mans land.
I do not pretend to really understand this fully, I am just explaining what I think I know so far. -
Hmm.. If a IR recorder is included in the sketch, how would you handle different carrier frequencies of the remotes?
It could be anything between 35Khz and 40Khz (or 400Khz if it's B&O equipment), and IR receivers are made with narrow filters. This could mean that if you use 38Khz carrier frequency on equipment that originally uses 35Khz, then because of the attenuation in the filters, the range is very low.
Ideally we need something to detect the carrier frequency as well.. But don't know if that is possible to obtain easily with an arduino setup
@tbowmo The board is not tied to a specific IR Receiver - we have a socket on board as a convenience so users can temporarily plug an IR Receiver in to learn the codes the don't have to build an IR learning circuit on a breadboard just to learn the codes. This means that users will be able to use whichever IR receiver is appropriate for their equipment/needs. We will probably include the most common IR Receiver with the IR Blaster kit so it is plug-n-play for 90% of the users out of the box. The last 10% is ideally a longer term software challenge but time will tell ;)
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@tbowmo said:
Ideally we need something to detect the carrier frequency as well.. But don't know if that is possible to obtain easily with an arduino setup
I have tried a lot of things, i ended up with recording the signals and replay them at different frequencies (36,37,38,39 and 40) and rotated the scheme. When someone got a working frequency the signal is stored with the frequency. I ended up with IRremote from http://github.com/shirriff/Arduino-IRremote as it became quite tedious. Maybe it helps.
Cheers,
John.[edit]Sorry, now seeing that the mentioned lib has already passed by[/edit]
My Domotica project: http://www.pidome.org
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@tbowmo said:
Ideally we need something to detect the carrier frequency as well.. But don't know if that is possible to obtain easily with an arduino setup
I have tried a lot of things, i ended up with recording the signals and replay them at different frequencies (36,37,38,39 and 40) and rotated the scheme. When someone got a working frequency the signal is stored with the frequency. I ended up with IRremote from http://github.com/shirriff/Arduino-IRremote as it became quite tedious. Maybe it helps.
Cheers,
John.[edit]Sorry, now seeing that the mentioned lib has already passed by[/edit]
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@John Here is another option - there seems to be a lot of prior art out there that we can leverage. https://github.com/r45635/HVAC-IR-Control
@blacey i tried this one as well but i was wearing wool sweater at the time and it seems like the ir recievers do not take huge zaps well so i have to repeat my experiments when new leds arrive
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@blacey said:
@John Here is another option - there seems to be a lot of prior art out there that we can leverage. https://github.com/r45635/HVAC-IR-Control
Looks like they merged the library i'm using but with hvac additions. Original one i used is here: https://bitbucket.org/pidome/pidome-hardware/src/ce1d656c909b/Arduino/Uno/PiDome IR Tranceiver/?at=default My code is merely a "proxy"(wired) as it is meant to send and receive. This because codes are stored on the server. Maybe it helps. I haven't followed the whole thread, but it would be very nice if the blaster could be used to proxy. But i know raw ir signals can be too long for the mysensors payload.
