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
Following on from our previous blog post about SKY+ RC6 IR codes, we have now completed the project and are about to ship to its new owner – a friend of ours.
We purchased a Sega megadrive Arcade style games console which was BNIB for €25 ($35) and disabled all of the built-in gaming functionality. We then wired up each of the 12 available switches (Joystick & Arcade style buttons) to the Arduino Nano which was placed onto an Arduino prototyping shield and mounted to the enclosure using ‘lots’ of hot glue. Note some of these consoles come with an additional 2 buttons, which can bring the total to 14. In addition, the joystick has 8 positions in total of which we used only 4 as it would be too difficult for the user to manage all eight. Continue reading Custom TV remote control using Arcade style console
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
We are working on a project to create a custom TV remote to control a SKY+ satellite box, for a friend who cannot manage the standard remote control or even the accessibility ones that are available.
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
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:
Notes:
E.&O.E.
Today we have added a new perk of IR starter kits and retired some of the other perks.
The kits are provided as a quick starter aid for backers who dont have IR receivers to hand. Please note that a learner IR receiver is required to measure the modulation frequency and at least one IR receiver is required otherwise (=Kit A).
Of course you can still use the powerful import/export feature without any Arduino or IR receiver connected.
Please feel free to purchase your own components directly. Otherwise we have a student ready to do all the leg work for a small bribe (oops I meant Tip).
On the technical side of things – we have greatly improved the performance, design & implementation of the Arduino based code along with some User Interface improvements, over the last few days .
Finally, a big welcome to our latest backers and thanks again to all our 80+ backers.
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Here is a screenshot showing the new automatic signal cleaning feature in AnalysIR. You will notice in channel 2 (yellow & red) where I have overlaid the recorded signal from CH1 (green) on top of the cleaned signal in CH2 (yellow). The green & red signal is the recorded signal & the yellow signal is the ‘cleaned’ signal.  Note: Use CTRL+, CTL-, or CTRL0 – to zoom in & out on most browsers Combined with AnalysIR’s sensitivity setting for decoding it is possible to rebuild a perfect signal from a really poor signal. With this new ‘Bonus Feature’, we can export almost perfect signals from AnalysIR and re-import the exported signal to compare against the original recorded signal. This will be a great benefit when designing IR devices or circuits. |
After the great news of reaching the initial target on IGG today, I wanted to give a few more updates.
1: AnalysIR has been invited by one of the leading IR equipment manufacturers to join their global partner programme. We hope this will open up access to a potentially huge user base for AnalysIR gong forward with great benefits for both partners. This would not have been possible without the great support from our backers.
2: We wanted to update everyone on our progress with export in Global Caché command format. Well after some initial mistakes using IRremote to generate the signals for a SKY HD remote, we finally succeeded in verifying that the export works with GC equipment, with the help of one of our backers, who happens to have this equipment installed. (Unfortunately, we didn’t have a SKY remote control available)
As part of the debugging process in this exercise, we decided to implement a new feature, to clean up the recorded signal, which means that we can now export almost perfect signals from any signal decoded by AnalysIR, even if it is imported via another format. With this additional ‘Bonus Feature’, we can record or import a very poor signal and recondition it into a perfect signal for export – automatically. We believe our methodology for this could be patentable, but unfortunately we don’t have the resources for this, at this time.
The really good news is that AnalysIR played a key role in debugging & identifying the silly error we made initially.
So now AnalysIR can import & export in the following formats:
– IRremote
– IRLib
– Pronto
– Global Caché GC-100
– Global Caché iTach (*)
– Global Caché GC-IRL (*)
– Global Caché GC-IRE (*)
(*) = Export not yet verified with physical device.
3: As we indicated just over a week ago, we are now implementing a feature freeze on AnalysIR from today. This will allow us to complete some ‘in-progress’ features and allow us to concentrate on testing, documentation & packaging AnalysIR for release. We would still like to hear any new feature requests from backers for inclusion in later releases & additional import/export formats. Just send us a comment, message via IGG or email.
Finally, we are considering adding some new perks over the next few days and may be retiring some of the existing perks. ….more later
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.
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.