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Extending Harmony IR mini blasters

183K views 167 replies 83 participants last post by  randolphjohn142 
#1 ·
Hello folks,

Many of you have been asking about extending the IR mini blaster's reach in the various Harmony threads. We did a little experiment, the results of which I wanted to share, and let everyone know which parts we used in case you wanted to order the same.

Please note that the longer the wire, the more current loss is experienced, so extended mini blaster performance may not be on par with that when using the regular cable.

As you're aware, the goal here is to use a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter on the mini blaster side, use a 3.5mm extension cable to reach the desired length, and reduce back from 3.5mm to 2.5mm on the hub side to fit into one of the blaster ports.


We purchased the following adapters from monoprice:

Mini blaster side (2.5mm mono to 3.5mm stereo adapter)
Monoprice item #7125

Harmony Hub side (3.5mm mono to 2.5mm mono adapter)
Monoprice item #7121


We also ordered various cable lengths to test

100ft 3.5mm to 3.5mm mono stereo extension cable (warning - this cable really isn't pretty :) )
Monoprice item #5595

50ft 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo extension cable
Monoprice item #5593

25ft 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo extension cable
Monoprice item #5591

12 ft 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo extension cable
Monoprice item # 649

Using each of the extension cables individually worked well.

Also, after teasing each individual one, we started from the 12ft cable, and gradually added a longer cable length, testing every time, until we had the full 187ft of cable daisy chained (12 + 25 + 50 + 100). This also worked, though we did experience a loss of IR signal strength. We backed up from the devices being tested as far as 3 - 4 feet and the devices still responded, but the blaster requires a lot more positioning, etc towards the device. However, it still worked.

We hope this is helpful to whoever wished to extend their mini blaster's reach. Those cables aren't pretty, but those wishing to send a mini blaster off to their entertainment cabinet on a different floor, etc will definitely find success with these parts.

Please feel free to refer anyone asking about mini blaster extension to this post! :)

Regards,

Sylvain

 
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#3 ·
That is a nice easy solution. I just spliced some existing wire I had sitting around for my Harmony 890. IIRC it was wire to connect a garage door sensor to the main opener and had a bunch sitting around. Cut the cable on the mini blaster and splice the garage door cable in to extend the run another 15 feet over the original length.

This solution would have been much easier as the wire is very small so stripping the coating off is a little delicate. But it works fine, and was at least faster than waiting for Monoprice.
 
#5 ·
Thanks. After quite some time poking around the internet this is absolutely the exact post I needed to see. I was getting confused / worried that all the cables and adapters had to be mono, but it looks like one or two stereo ones are not a problem.

Parts are in my monoprice shopping cart now!
 
#6 · (Edited)
I bought a mono 2.5mm jack, and a mono 2.5mm female, and soldered them to 100' cat6 to control a TV in another part of the house.
Works great.

Had a probelm with the femail end, it was so cheap that the jack from the IR extender wouldn't push into it. So, instead of going back to the store I Just cut the end off the exender, and soldered the extender right to the cat6 wire. In retrospect I should have just saved money and soldered the jack part of the extender wire to the other end too. :)



 
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#10 ·
I bought a mono 2.5mm jack, and a mono 2.5mm female, and soldered them to 100' cat6 to control a TV in another part of the house.
Works great.

Had a probelm with the femail end, it was so cheap that the jack from the IR extender wouldn't push into it. So, instead of going back to the store I Just cut the end off the exender, and soldered the extender right to the cat6 wire. In retrospect I should have just saved money and soldered the jack part of the extender wire to the other end too. :)
I was wondering if that would work. This will really help me out on one of my installations. I have used a lot of IR systems with harmony remotes and I usually use CAT5 wire and splice it on either end.

Do you know if other emitters work other than the ones that come with the system? I will give it a shot tomorrow and see if it works with a system I am putting together.
 
#7 ·
What I did was use a regular Ethernet punchdown jack at each end of my run. I then took a short Ethernet patch cable and cut it in half. On each cut end I added a female 3.5mm solder-type fitting (not using Harmony 2.5mm in my case). I can now reuse the Ethernet run by simply unplugging the patch cable.
 
#8 ·
I use a 900 in my theater room, and an 890 in my family room. I don't need the IR cables for my 890, but could use more on my 900.

Do you know if the jack reducers would work on the 890 cables so I could use them on my 900? Also, are there splitters so I could connect two wires to one port?

Thanks!
 
#9 ·
The 890 cables would need 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male connectors.

You could get a 1 male to 2 female mono connector. You have to be careful because they make a 1 male stereo to 2 female mono connector which would not work. It would only send a signal out of one side.

You can make pretty much anything you need with a soldering iron solution. Just use some solder-type male or female connectors and use however many wires you need.
 
#11 ·
Adapter doesn't fit

I purchased all the components you recommended from monoprice but unfortunately the male end will not secure into the female adapter on the mini blaster side, it seems to be too small.

Do you have any recommendations? I'm desperate to get this working. Thanks
 
#15 ·
Awesome stuff! Great to hear everything worked for OP, but sad to see a couple posts saying it wasn't that smooth for them. The 50 footer is out of stock at the moment too :(, I may try an alternate brand and will post results when I decide to set things up.

Has anyone tried 50 ft 2.5 mm cords? I noticed these also exist
 
#16 · (Edited)
misI finally decided to try "it". I connected my MonoPrice IR Repeater using a 3.5mm Female to 2.5mm male to the Harmony Hub & from the Hub to my TV & cable box with a 3.5mm 2 lead stereo emitter. Both the TV & cable box are running now. I don't know how long a 3.5mm cable the IR repeater will work with or the Hub.

So now, it looks like the Monoprice IR repeater will work as an extension of the Harmony Hub. I do know that the IR repeater won't work with the Global iTach the time I tried it; could be tho that the Monoprice IR repeater has 2 transmitter inputs & I connected the 2nd input from the output of the Global iTach so I can checkout different tablet apps for IR control but still be able to use the iTach ip2ir for "normal" use.

Anyway, one might try the low cost Monoprice IR repeater as an Harmony extension. No idea whether the Monoprice uses different IR codes for input from other models but do know the the "X......." version is different since Global has a special cable for it.
 
#17 ·
It's super annoying that Logitech chose to use 2.5 mm, to sell more Logitech-branded accessories.

Logitech website doesn't even state the 2.5 mm spec, under specifications.

I think Logitech control division was purchased by Monster.
 
#19 ·
Just need the mono jack right? If so will order half a dozen so i got them on hand thanks
 
#22 ·
lol I just quoted it ;/
 
#24 ·
Yes to both, but the best way would be to use the 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapters. You don't want to have the hub emitters going into the IR repeater's IR receiver and then out to its IR emitters. Just use the Hub directly connected to your prewired IR emitters from your current setup.
 
#25 ·
I am working on using some terminated Cat5 that is already installed and will be dedicated to IR. Need a short Cat5 cable with two (2) 2.5 mm plugs to connect my hub to the in-wall Cat5, and another one with jacks for the other end (in the closet). I don't want a bunch of adapters hanging off of my Hub, since it will be visible and needs to tuck into a corner.

Anyone here have mad soldering skills? I have tried soldering 2.5mm jacks and plugs onto Cat5, and have failed miserably almost every time. I end up melting and shorting the connector.

I'd be happy to pay someone who could solder these up for me!
 
#29 ·
You anywhere near Mansfield ohio?
 
#30 ·
If you don't want to practice soldering until you get the hang of it, buy RJ45 breakout boards with screw terminals.
 
#31 ·
#39 ·
Cat5 IR for Harmony!

A couple of you mentioned splicing into Cat5. I called up CablesForLess, and they set up a SKU for my custom cables: RJ45 on one end, and two 2.5mm plugs on the other. A second cable with RJ45 on one end, and two 2.5mm jacks on the other. They are wired to match (male and female) on both ends.

I ordered 1 foot cables, and they plug into my hub with no issue, then to a wall jack which then runs about 100' to my rack. That end gets the female set, and a blaster for all my downstairs equipment and a pair of emitters for duplicated equipment (TWC cable boxes).

I got a second set for my upstairs setup, feeding three TV's and audio from a separate hub, placed centrally to ensure radio reception.

The cables make for a super-clean solution, and work great without depending on my (very) limited soldering skills.

Happy to share the SKU, and contact info at CablesForLess. Tom was great about making sure they built exactly what I needed.
 

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#40 ·
A couple of you mentioned splicing into Cat5. I called up CablesForLess, and they set up a SKU for my custom cables: RJ45 on one end, and two 2.5mm plugs on the other. A second cable with RJ45 on one end, and two 2.5mm jacks on the other. They are wired to match (male and female) on both ends.

I ordered 1 foot cables, and they plug into my hub with no issue, then to a wall jack which then runs about 100' to my rack. That end gets the female set, and a blaster for all my downstairs equipment and a pair of emitters for duplicated equipment (TWC cable boxes).

I got a second set for my upstairs setup, feeding three TV's and audio from a separate hub, placed centrally to ensure radio reception.

The cables make for a super-clean solution, and work great without depending on my (very) limited soldering skills.

Happy to share the SKU, and contact info at CablesForLess. Tom was great about making sure they built exactly what I needed.

Hi pfmueller,

It sounds like you have what might be the most elegant/clean solution for extending the range of the Harmony cables. I'm looking at around 60' of extra range to cover, and I will be having some cable run for cat6, hdmi and an IR "blaster" of some sort. Vendor-provided IR cables are all very short, though, including the Harmony one.

Can you please help me make sure I understand your setup and the cable? It looks like the cable receives the male end of the IR blaster and goes into a cat5 jack. I would then have cat5 run to another jack in my closet housing the receiver/AV gear, and then in my closet the second cable you mention with the male end would connect that jack to the plug on the Logitech hub. Is that correct?

As I said above, I'm already having cat6 installed in several rooms, running back to a patch panel in a completely different room. I am guessing I should have your cat5 solution on a separate isolated point to point cable/jack setup, instead of feeding back to that panel.

If my assumptions are correct and you think it'll work, I would love to have that SKU and contact you mentioned in your post. Thanks in advance!

-Brian
 
#42 ·
I guess I should have been more careful with how I worded it! I agree, I would just use cat6 and wouldn't run cat5 just for this. My main point of clarification on the cabling is that it should probably be point to point, separate cabling that runs to the a/v closet and not to the patch panel. Otherwise we're adding a lot more length and complexity to the solution.
 
#43 ·
So I'm reading more about the product and it looks like I've misunderstood how the Harmony Elite works. Based on what I've read tonight it appears that the remote doesn't need any IR receiver at the viewing location, the only cables run from the hub to the vicinity of the devices to be controlled. If that's the case I won't need any extra cables since everything I'm looking to control at this time will be in the same spot.
 
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