Tag Archives: Crowdfunding

Update: AnalysIR network enabled, Kits, RPi, Yún

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The first set of kits has shipped today and because we were able to get a discount on the components we also included some bonus components as a gift (2 x npn transistors, 4 x 100 ohm resistors & 4 x 4k7 ohm resistors). These extra components may be of use to those who want to build their own IR led Driver circuit with the TSAL6100. We didn’t realise that shipping components was such an ordeal (individual Customs & Air Safety declarations depending on destination). The shipping cost was more than budgeted, but was also offset by the discount achieved.

On the Raspberry Pi front, AnalysIR is now running well without any noticeable glitches. The approach we have adapted is to connect to the RPi over the network. The solution was to pipe the output over the LAN to a virtual serial port on the Windows PC. The virtual serial port utility is freely available for Windows and the network stuff on the RPi is just standard shell commands. I should point out that we haven’t yet tried to measure the modulation frequency on the RPi, just straight decoding though the IR Receiver. When idle we are using only 1.3% CPU on the RPi, when recording a single signal it goes to 1.6% CPU & when full out recording IR it goes up to ~ 4.9% CPU usage. This is pretty good as it doesn’t impact on other processes; considering our first attempt was using 99% CPU when idle 🙂

The potential to decode & analyze over a network may lead to some interesting features in future – ideas welcome. As a minimum, the work with the RPi will make the port to the Arduino Due easier (we are expecting a Due next week) and also when the Arduino Yún is released with WiFi

Update: Campaign reaches 100 backers, RPi & News

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We have now reached 100 unique backers for AnalysIR and we would like to thank you all for your generous support & welcome our latest backers. In particular, we would like to give a special thanks to those who made donations without perks.

And now for the News:

  • The components for the Starter Kits have arrived as expected; the envelopes are already printed with addresses taken from IGG & we plan to drop them off at the Post Office sometime on Monday. Hopefully, most people will have received them before AnalysIR is released to backers (circa: 9th September, which allows1 week after the campaign ends to eliminate as many glitches as possible). Remember, to get the full use of AnalysIR you will need the components in Kit A, as a minimum. However, just having an IR receiver is sufficient.(+ of course an Arduino).
    So far, everyone has chosen ‘Kit F’, which is probably a good idea.
  • Regarding the Raspberry Pi ‘stretch goal’, it looks like we may not reach this goal, based on the current trajectory. However, we decided to purchase a Pi with the IGG (aka your) funds released to date & it arrived yesterday. After a lot of ‘wasted’ time trying to get it set up without a display we eventually succeeded. So today we had a go at porting our Arduino code over to the RPi. For the initial attempt, we have decided to use the WiringPi library & we have good success so far. So here is an exported trace image of the first successful NEC IR signal decoded by AnalysIR from a Raspberry Pi.
    SignalTraceImage
    First successful NEC IR signal decoded by AnalysIR from a Raspberry Pi

    use CTRL+
    On the top you can see the same IR signal recorded directly by AnalysIR at the same time (via 2 different IR receivers – one connected to an Arduino & the other connected to an RPi pin)

  • We haven’t fully finished with the RPi coding yet & there are some minor glitches, but we are happy with it as a first attempt. At the moment we are using interrupts & are only dumping the information to a terminal screen via a network connection & then manually pasting the output into AnalysIR’s import facility. We have to do some further study to see how we can best get ‘serial’ data from the RPi to the Windows PC. The simple solution is to use a USB serial adapter connected to the Rx/Tx pins of the RPi, but given it already has an Ethernet port we are going to investigate if a more elegant solution is feasible.

That’s all for now……… Next week = Documentation update

Update: Kits, IR Compression, Serial Hack etc….

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As we are approaching the last 10 days of the campaign we would like to share the following updates:

● Today we were informed that the kit components were shipped via UPS to us here in Dublin. Hopefully, they will arrive within a few days, which means we should be able to start posting them out over the weekend or early next week.

● We have been busy this week with preparing the Windows installation package and it seems to be going well – so far.
● We also improved the Arduino code and increased the effective RAM available for AnalysIR.
● We have also integrated the IR modulation measurement into the GUI and it works well with the Modulation frequency being updated ‘at least’ once per IR signal. As we mentioned previously, we have not seen an example of IR modulation frequency being measured on an Arduino before, and particularly not simultaneous with IR decoding.
● We have also added support for compression of IR when importing or exporting in Global Cache format.
● Yesterday we had an interesting experience with the Arduino. As we were swapping out one IR receiver and held the signal line in the hand – a signal received by AnalysIR. We inspected the signal and it seemed to be pretty consistent, so it was analysed quickly using excel and it turned out (not surprisingly) to be mains hum which in this part of the world has a frequency of 50Hz (vs 60Hz elsewhere). That then got me thinking about the following hack!
● We then tested sending a series of serial signals from another Arduino into the IR rx pin and voila the serial trace appeared in the display of AnalysIR. We successfully tested up to 38400 BAUD and bit higher. So even though we do not plan to ‘officially’ support serial protocols at this time, it means that you could potentially use AnalysIR as a pseudo Serial analyzer or even a basic digital signal/logic analyzer of sorts. The limit would be somewhere between 40-50kHz, on a 16MHz Arduino. Not bad a hack before release  🙂

● We have recently come across several new IR protocols including:
Denon
Motorola
Samsung
Daewoo
Japanese Code

– To date we have completed all the investigations needed to decode them and add them to AnalysIR. However, we will have to defer this until after the initial release has settled down & we can get reliable source signals to verify against. Once we complete these new signals we will be heading towards an even more comprehensive list of supported protocols.

 

……stay tuned

Infrared Component Kits

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We have decided to offer a small number of Infrared Component Kits to help users of AnalysIR get started quickly. As a minimum you will require 1 IR receiver to use AnalysIR, plus we highly recommend the ‘IR Learner’ below if you also want to measure modulation frequency.

(Note: This is an updated copy of the original document from the crowd-funding campaign. The original document can be found here.)

IR receivers/emitter in Infrared Component Kits:

Model Frequency Description Gain Typical Application
TSSP4038 38kHz 1 x IR receiver Fixed Gain Barrier + AnalysIR
TSMP58000 20 -> 60kHz 1 x IR receiver – Learner + AnalysIR
TSOP4436 36kHz 1 x IR receiver AGC 4 RC5/6
TSOP34438 38kHz 1 x IR receiver AGC 4 NEC
TSOP4840 40kHz 1 x IR receiver AGC 2 SONY
TSOP2256 56kHz 1 x IR receiver AGC 2 RCA
TSAL6100 All 1 x IR emitter – IR LED transmitter

AGC 2: Standard Applications
AGC 4: Very Noisy Environment

Kits do not include AnalysIR

Select one or more kits from the following:

Item Kit A Kit B Kit C Kit D Kit E Kit F
TSSP4038 Y Y Y Y Y Y
TSMP58000 Y Y Y Y Y Y
TSOP4436 Y Y Y Y
TSOP34438 Y Y Y Y
TSOP4840 Y Y
TSOP34156 Y
TSAL6100 Y Y Y Y Y
Bonus Gift see 11
below		 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Shipping see 9
below		 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Student Tip Y Y Y Y Y Y
Perk Price $8 $10 $10 $12 $13 $15

 Y = Included

Instructions:

  1. Select the kit you want based on the items included
  2. For example, Kit A contains 1 x TSSP4038, 1 x TSMP58000, plus shipping (see 9 below) and a small tip/gratuity for the student.
  3. Then purchase the kit or kits you want by contributing the relevant cost (or sum for multiple kits)
  4. To purchase Kit A just make  an $8 payment  via the PayPal button on this page. To purchase multiple kits just make one contribution to the same perk for the total amount.
  5. If you select Kit B or Kit C then include  a message on PayPal to clarify which perk you want.
  6. These component Kits do not include AnalysIR.
  7. Cost increased (Sep 2014) due to increase in postage.
  8. TSOP4438 replaced with more modern TSOP34438.
  9. Shipping: is included in price above, provided you are also buying AnalysIR or have bought AnalysIR previously. Otherwise, add $5 to the prices above (once only) for worldwide shipping.
  10. Delivery, usually takes from 5->10 working days. There may be some exceptions to this – depending on location.
  11. Bonus gift: We also include a selection of useful components, with all kits, to help with your IR projects. (2 x NPN + 8 x resistors … enough to complete a good Infrared emitter circuit for longer range)

Notes:

  1. Please feel free to order these parts directly your-self. We won’t be offended in any way. We are not offering these to make any $$$ at all. In fact it is much less work for us if backers have or supply their own components.
  2. Kit A, B or C is more than adequate for most users.
  3. Standard shipping worldwide for owners of AnalysIR is included, Otherwise add an extra $5, as per Instruction 9 above.  Postage is not tracked or insured. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any replacements for items mislaid in the post or delivery failures. Due to the low value, we do not expect that there would be customs charges etc.  and if there are any you will have to cover this cost.
  4. We have included a small tip/gratuity for the student who has agreed to pack & post these perks.
  5. This perk is intended as a quick start aid for backers.
  6. These perks will be posted from Dublin, Ireland and typically take 5-10 working days depending on worldwide destination.
  7. You can select multiple kits.
  8. All kit IR components are from Vishay, who are a leading supplier of high quality components. We use them all the time for IR components.
  9. We have allowed for the Sales Tax, IGG, PayPal, Currency & inward shipping charges which will be levied on us for these components.
  10. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to alter or replace any component if it is not available when we order them. However, we will do our best to match functionality as much as is reasonable. Hopefully this won’t be an issue.
  11. We have not included any Arduinos as they are freely available online. Many of these kit components are not easily available in quantities of 1, without excessive mark-ups, high minimum orders or postage.
  12. Shipping will be to PayPal registered address. (Let us know, immediately, if you want it sent to an alternative address)
  13. Use the Contact Form to contact us, directly.

E.&O.E.

Update: Bonus feature – IR Chart Analytics for AnalysIR

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Today we have added another bonus feature to AnalysIR – a colour coded chart which displays the distribution of Marks & Spaces of an IR signal, including an option to select the granularity of each time slot measured (from 10 to 1,000 uSecs). We have included a screenshot below of an NEC signal at 50 uSecs time slots and the chart shows the number of Mark/Spaces for each time range found.

chartscreenshot
Screenshot of AnalysIR Analytics feature

This feature has a number of potential uses:

– Makes decoding new protocols easier, because you get a quick analysis of the pulse lengths (marks & spaces) in the signal.

– Can immediately show problems with your IR receiver, transmitter, encoding or decoding circuit/logic. For example, in the chart above the space for a ‘1’ bit should be 1,690 uSecs and it’s shown on the graph as being spread out between the 1550 to 1700 time slots. This is not normally a big issue as most decoders will allow a reasonable margin of error when decoding, but it can help to highlight issues when designing.

– Using the image save option means you can export the chart and use in reports, blogs or presentations.

Thanks again to all our backers who used the IGG referrals option for AnalysIR. It has had a real impact. (We are now ranked in the top 10 Technology projects on IGG which have reached over 75% of target!  – ahead of many bigger projects Keep sharing your AnalysIR referral link.  See earlier post re referrals)

And finally, keep your feature suggestions coming!

 

PS: You should be able to zoom in/out of an image using CTRL ‘+’, CTRL ‘-‘ or CTRL ‘0’ in most desktop browsers.

Maker Faire – Timelapse & RFE deadline

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Created on the Timelapseberry Pi, a Raspberry Pi-based timelapse camera (AnalysIR is on the right)

PS: As I was typing this timelapse sequence of Maker Faire last week just arrived, which shows the AnalysIR stand on the right. (looks like it can only appear at the top of an update)

===========================================================

Great News!

Yesterday we successfully managed to import from the RAW/DUMP output of the 2 main Arduino IR libraries (IRremote & IRLib). To use it’s very simple, just copy and paste all of the text output and paste into AnalysIR. Simple! You then get a graphical display of the signal and the option to save it to disk as part of the session History. We will continue to test over the coming weeks and maybe even add another import source. Suggestions Welcome!.

You may ask – why is this feature useful when AnalysIR can just record and decode and save the signal directly. Well there happens to be a huge resource across the Internet of pre-recorded signals from all sorts of tools & devices, and it may be beneficial to import them into one place for comparison or troubleshooting. Another use would be to help others who are looking for help on support Forum(s) etc. Once the signal is imported into AnalysIR, you can then export an image of the signal trace (or plot) which could also have advantages in education.

Now that the end date is on the Horizon, we are finalising our release plans. So if there are any feature requests, from backers we would like to hear about them in the next 3-5 days at the latest, so that we can include them in the initial release(if feasible).

Celebrating 50th backer with new ‘Import’ feature

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WOW

We are delighted to welcome our 50th backer and to celebrate we are going to spend some time today adding a new feature – going to try importing from one other system to get us started and hopefully add more in future.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to make referrals, it is having a real impact on our ranking on Indiegogo.

Update: 50% of Campaign target reached

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Great News – we have passed 50% of the minimum target, but with lots of hard work remaining to get to 100%.

We had a great weekend with the Maker Faire & coverage on the Arduino Blog. I believe we also got coverage on Adafruit yeaterday, all of which really helps to get the message out for AnalysIR.

Thanks again to our backers who shared the link to our project (see earlier post on how to) – it really helps and we can see the impact via the analytics.

We will make another update once we have fully recovered from Maker Faire (Great fun and very very hard work on the day and in preparation).

This morning we were pulling our hair out using the Leonardo platform, but it seems that unlike other Arduinos you need to properly close the serial port in the windows application before exiting, otherwise the Leonardo is visible as a COM port but unusable. It took hours to debug this and we will make a post on the Arduino forum in case others hit the same problem.

……more later and a BIG welcome to all of our new backers.

Update: Dublin Mini Maker Faire

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Welcome to our 2 latest Backers from Brazil & Ireland. Just wanted to let you all know that AnalysIR is featured on the home page of Dublin Mini Maker Faire (http://www.makerfairedublin.com/).

Over the past few days we have focused on improving the serial performance of data coming from the Arduino, which is not normally an issue with IR, except when recording Helicopter RC which can continuously send IR signals. The good news is that this interface is much higher performance now and will be published as part of the project

For the next week we will be focused on putting finishing touches to our 10 IR exhibits for the Dublin Maker Faire, which includes the addition of the Lego Mindstorms tower protocol & we may also get to meet our latest Irish backer.

You can see a list of our IR exhibits on  Dublin Mini Maker Faire