When [beerninja] wanted to swap his USB keyboard from one game console to another without mucking about with wires, he asked the Hack A Day forums for some help. [Meseta] (AKA [UAirLtd]) came to the rescue and built [beerninja] a remote-controlled USB switch.
After opening up a no-name USB switch, [Meseta] discovered that the switching is done with simple relays and switches. A hugely overpowered Forebrain ARM dev board was used to pull each switch low for a few hundred milliseconds to switch the output USB port.
For the infrared remote control, [Meseta] dug into Lady Ada’s IR sensor tutorial and decoded buttons 1 through 4 on a Sky TV remote. Each button from one to four corresponds to the buttons on the USB sharing switch. The ‘0’ button was also decoded as a convenience to put the Forebrain into its reprogramming mode. After drilling a small hole for the IR receiver, the finished project was stuffed back into the original steel enclosure.
Check out the video of the switch in action after the break.
