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DIY ir receivers and emitters?

post #1 of 6
1/5/10 at 5:55am
Thread Starter 
I'm looking to put together an inexpensive but reliable IR repeater setup for my basement theater and am curious just how much of this I can DIY.

If I buy a distribution block on fleabay that is designed to run on Cat 5, but cannot find the same brand receivers or emitters (the product is discontinued), would it be as simple as buying some IR receivers and emitters from Radioshack and wiring them to the end of some Cat5? I'm pretty sure the emitters have nothing more than + and - leads. The block in question has connectors for (S)ignal, +, and - on the receiver side. Are any extra bits needed (capacitors, etc)?
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post #2 of 6
1/5/10 at 6:17am
Thread Starter 
Apologies. Didn't see the DIY subsection of the forum. Any way to move my post or should I just re-post?
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post #3 of 6
1/5/10 at 7:34am
Whew - I thought by DIY you were going to try to "make" one yourself...

Yes, much of the IR gear is interchangable. The emitters, absolutely. The receivers should all be compatible as well, but you'll find a wider variation in quality on those...

And no, if you've got a connecting block, which supplies power to the receiver (many sell the power supply / wall wart separately - make sure you get the right one), you should be set...

Jeff
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post #4 of 6
1/5/10 at 8:00am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jautor View Post

Whew - I thought by DIY you were going to try to "make" one yourself...

Thanks for the reply. Just to be clear, I was talking about making the receivers and emitters from radio shack parts... not buying a premade one sold at radioshack. The thing I am most unclear on, from reading a few guides that show how to make PC ir receivers from scratch, is whether all the voltage regulators, diodes, and whatnot they talk about would be built into the commercial distribution block and not needed for this kind of project or whether those parts exist in the premade receivers and I would need them as well. The emitters I'm 99% sure are straighforward + and - leads.
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post #5 of 6
1/5/10 at 8:18am
Oh, so you ARE doing a DIY! Yikes... The distribution blocks are likely just supplying power to the receiver, and amplifying the received signal for distribution. I think you'll need all the parts...

I hope you're doing this for fun... Emitters are so cheap, and IR receivers are finicky (especially with regards to LCD/plasma interference), that that's the only reason I'd consider building one.

Jeff
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post #6 of 6
1/5/10 at 11:10pm
There are plans on the internets for various DIY IR retransmitters using for example a 555 timer to generate the IR carrier and such, but I rolled my own using a small 8 pin AVR instead to do the same thing (overkill, but without the finicking analog bits). It works fine, and a friend has it now to get the TV remote IR behind the center channel speaker (which is in the way normally of using the remote). I was using it to blast IR from my bedroom to the living room over some cat3 I had laying about.

You can totally DIY with the right parts but if you're not experienced with building little finicky circuits it may be worth your time/money to spend a few bucks beyond the cost of components to get something prebuilt. I already had everything but the IR receiver and LED modules on hand, truely I spent as much on shipping from digikey as I did on those parts.
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