Tag Archives: decoding

‘Silver bullet’ – the Oscilloscope Infrared Receiver

A while ago we came across a website on infrared remote controls which suggested a simple way to view IR signals using an Oscilloscope. The idea is to use a standard IR Led mounted into a BNC/RCA plug using a spare channel  making an Oscilloscope infrared receiver. So we set about ordering the connectors, which arrived in the post today. Another way of looking at this device is as a ‘poor-mans’ IR receiver, but if you have an Oscilloscope to plug it into then maybe you are not so poor after all.

Silver Bullet - Infrared Receiver connected to Channel 1
Silver Bullet – Infrared Receiver connected to Channel 1

Continue reading ‘Silver bullet’ – the Oscilloscope Infrared Receiver

Infrared Receivers – signal lag and distortion

Many electronics enthusiasts will be familiar with how Infrared receivers demodulate IR signals. In this post we show a visualisation of the time lag and distortion of the signals as they pass through the IR receiver for demodulation and noise filtering.  Most DIY projects use the raw timings from the IR receiver to decode individual signals. However, not many will be aware that IR receivers can distort the signal timings by significant amounts. Fortunately, common IR decoders take this into account and compensate for timing distortions introduced by infrared demodulators / receivers.

Infrared Signal, Modulated & De-modulated
Infrared Signal, Modulated & De-modulated

Continue reading Infrared Receivers – signal lag and distortion

Arduino: 10 common pitfalls with Infrared Remote Control

Arduino: 10 common pitfalls with Infrared Remote Control
Arduino: 10 common pitfalls with Infrared Remote Control

Over the last few months we have been regular contributors to the Arduino and other forums, answering questions about Infrared remote control projects. It became apparent that beginners typically trip up on many common ‘pitfalls’. So we decided to list off our ‘Top 10’.

 

Continue reading Arduino: 10 common pitfalls with Infrared Remote Control

Latest ‘New Year’ release of AnalysIR with full support for USB IR Toy and more.

Dublin, Ireland – 31st January 2014. We are happy to announce the latest ‘New Year’ release of AnalysIR to all our backers & supporters. Since the completion of the crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo we have added over 125 updates and enhancements to AnalysIR, with more to come.

AnalysIR Screenshot
AnalysIR Screenshot

A major highlight of this release is full AnalysIR support for USB IR Toy from Dangerous Prototypes (V1 & V2 hardware) for decoding and resending IR signals at all common modulation frequencies. In our opinion, AnalysIR is now the premier GUI supporting DP’s IR toy, not to mention the Arduino, RPi, MSP430 F5529 LaunchPad (beta)  and more. A selection of enhancements in this latest release, include: Continue reading Latest ‘New Year’ release of AnalysIR with full support for USB IR Toy and more.

AnalysIR integrated support for USB IR Toy

Dangerous Protoypes
USB IR Toy V2 from Dangerous Prototypes (via Seedstudio)

We received a V2 USB IR Toy last week from Dangerous Prototypes via Seedstudio.
(See early access note for backers below)

After some initial teething problems we set about playing with this new device. Then we went about trying to integrate it into AnalysIR. We found that operating the IR Toy in ‘Sampling Mode’ worked best for our needs. There are several other modes available which are described on the website below. Continue reading AnalysIR integrated support for USB IR Toy

Crowdfunding Campaign Update – 23rd Oct 2013

Hello Backers,

We have been busy over the last few weeks updating AnalysIR, for you. We hope to make the next release at the end of this month around Halloween.

You may not know that Halloween originated in our part of the world, but we promise not to introduce too many scary features this time 🙂 .

Our next release will include a number of Updates & fixes as follows: Continue reading Crowdfunding Campaign Update – 23rd Oct 2013

Update: Back in Dublin & new Features

Welcome & a big thanks to our latest backers!  Back in Dublin, at last, after our latest travels and heads down in preparation for the Dublin Mini Maker Faire on July 27th. We hope to present 10 exhibits on the day, a couple of which we believe are firsts with IR on Arduino. (If we have time we will try to do some long range IR with lenses. Will have to figure out focal points & IR LED beam angles)

We have been busy working on adding support for a RC helicopter we recently found in the attic and have added support for it to AnlaysIR today. The model is the ‘old-ish’  SH SWIFT 6020-1  (not the more modern SY107 types) and should allow easy addition of other models later, if there is interest. We will have some fun at the Maker Faire at least.

It’s great having a tool like AnalysIR when decoding new IR protocols!
The good thing about this pending Maker Faire deadline is that we get to add extra features into AnlaysIR. In order to accomodate the Helicopter protocol we had to handle hundreds of IR commands in one sequence, whereas we would have dealt with a handful of signals in a sequence before. We have also added a popup window that shows the parameters of the Helicopter signals as they are processed, including slider bars visualising Throttle & Yaw.

Other features added recently include:
> Popup – showing more detailed breakdown of decoded signals in HEX & Binary
> Menu Option to exclude one or more protocols from the potential decoding attempts. (This helps when decoding intensive protocols like the Helicopter one).
> We have also added a new ‘discrete’ mode for each channel where every individual signal is recorded and displayed on its own. This was really required when receiving 100s of signals in the same sequence.

Our next effort is to decode a pair of Laser Challenge Pro laser tag units for the Maker Faire.

Remember, if you have any specific feature requests or use cases, please share them and do remember to share the link to this project via your social media channels.