IR systems, the choices

["Ian B" <Ian@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Nik

 

IR distribution comes in a variety of flavours with a few pitfalls.

 

OK - Basic

In this scenario we have receivers and transmitters placed around the place. Anything received by any receiver is transmitted by all the transmitters in real time. This is quite simple stuff and does not involve any rocket science on the whole. As far as I know this is where the Xantech stuff falls. The main down side is no smarts and you have to be careful with receiver/transmitter placement so you don't get a feedback loop.

 

Middle - some smarts

Here you add in a controller e.g. HV, a PC or whatever. You can then wire your network so that 'zones' can be addressed individually. This is where Frank's circuit comes in as an interface to HV from the IR network. There are several apps which exploit this type of setup although most only support learn and transmit but not zoning. Add in some switching though and you have the whole package. A little more complicated and sometimes frustrating.

 

Real smart

I don't know of a system off the top of my head but I am in the process of building one ;-)) Essentially with a PC each transmitter/receiver unit can be individually addressed. This means you can send a message to Rx/Tx No 1 to send IR signal xxx where xxx is the coded version of a signal that has been previously learnt. All these units hang off one three wire network connected to a serial port. There is no risk of feedback from each unit as it will not receive whilst transmitting.

If there is no PC then the units can be set to transmit in the same manner as the Basic above.

 

This is still in prototype stage and I would guess someone somewhere has or is doing something similar as well. Assuming I can get mine to work reliably (so far so good) it should be a good system and cheaper than the Xantech stuff. I think though that most folks have a mixture of the first two types of system.

 

If I am horribly wrong with any of the above I am sure someone will correct me.

 

HTH

 

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: Nikola Kasic [mailto:nikola@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 July 2002 15:34
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxxSubject: RE: [ukha_d] Where to buy IR transmitters and receivers?

Can also someone explain to me how IR distribution works?

If I have IRtx and IRrx in each room and I have 3 Sony TVs in a house, when I send Volume+ command from some room, how the system knows in which room to transmit the command?

Nik

-----Original Message-----
From: Nikola Kasic [mailto:nikola@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 July 2002 15:04
To: Home automation (E-mail)
Subject: [ukha_d] Where to buy IR transmitters and receivers?

I want to buy IR transmitters and receivers and wire them all to the node 0. I want them to be flush mounted on a wall.

Any idea where I can buy them.

Also, I still don't know what kind of a controller to put in node0 to control them. Is there any standard about signals transmitted, or I need to buy the complete solution, i.e. everything in a single go.

Cheers,

Nik

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