Chromebook Hack Controls Your Television

April 29, 2013 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

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[Michael Kohn] only accomplished about half of what he set out to, but we still think his TV channel switcher from a Chromebook turned out nicely. When starting the project he wanted to include a grid of listing so that he could choose a specific program, but decided that scraping the data was too much work for this go-round.

The Chromebook doesn’t include an IR transmitter so he built one using an MSP430 chip. He had previously built a little transmitter around an AVR chip and was surprised to find that the internal oscillator on that was quite a bit more accurate than on the MSP430. Timing is everything with the Manchester encoded signals used for IR remote controls so he used his oscilloscope to tune the DCO as accurately as possible.

The app shown on the screen was written in Javascript. Google published some example code on using RS232 with the computer; [Michael] used this resource to provide communications between the computer and the microcontroller.

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Remote Control Command Center Includes RF And IR Functions

March 21, 2013 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

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We’re still not quite sure what to call these projects, but as we’ve said before, it’s a pleasure to see what people are doing to use one remote control to rule them all. The project being developed by [Kalle Löfgren] seeks to simplify the remote controlled items in his home by combining all control into one smart phone app. The linchpin of the system is this command center which lets a smart phone send IR and RF commands to various devices (translated).

We’ve seen this done with pretty beefy microcontrollers, like this project that uses a PIC32. But the communications going on between the smartphone and the base station are very simple, as are the remote control commands which are being relayed. So we’re not surprised to find that this setup just uses an ATmega88, IR LED, Bluetooth Module, and RF module. There is no connection to a computer (the USB simply provides power via a cellphone charger). If you’re interested in how [Kalle] sniffed the protocol for each remote he wrote two other articles which you can find in the write-up linked above.

Adding Fireplace Control To Your Home Automation

March 15, 2013 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

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[James] has an admirable home automation system which he’s been working on for years. It does things like monitor the state of the garage door, control the lights, and it even notifies him of a power failure. One thing that wasn’t on the system yet are the fireplaces he has in his home. The hardware you see above is how he patched into the fireplace remote control system in order to automate them.

The remote control uses RF to communicate with a base station. Unlike controlling home theater components which use IR, this makes it a bit more difficult to patch into. Sure, we’d love to see some reverse engineering of the protocol so that a simple radio module could be used, but [James] chose the route which would mean the least amount of hacking on his part. He soldered wires onto the PCB for the buttons and connected to them using reed relays. These let the Arduino simulate button presses.

With the rig connected to the home network he has a lot of options. The system can sense if the house is occupied. If it determines that no one is home it will switch off the fireplaces. [James] also mentions the ability to monitor for carbon monoxide or house fires, switching off the gas fireplaces in either case.

ShuttAVR Can Snap A Pic Or Serve As An Intervalometer

March 14, 2013 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

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This project started as a simple microcontroller replacement on this IR camera remote control PCB. But the soldering job went rather badly for [Balthamos] so he changed things up and designed his own simple AVR remote shutter release and intervalometer.

The DIP chip seen with most of its legs bent backwards is the ATtiny25 which makes the system work. It’s patched into the traces for the battery connections, button (on the other side of the board) and the IR LED he’s pinching with his left hand. Point it at a Cannon camera and push the button to snap a photo. But as you can see in the clip after the break it also serves as an intervalometer; letting him take several pictures with a user-defined pause between each. That mode is selected by first pressing and holding the button. Once released the chip waits for a second button press to register the delay. The new circuit still fits in the original case after just a bit of alteration to it.

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A Solar Powered Cattle Crossing Gate

February 28, 2013 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

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Anyone who’s traveled the grounds of a cattle ranch will tell you there’s a lot of stopping to open and close gates. But this project is aimed at letting you operate the gate from the comfort of your vehicle. It uses a spool of wire as the gate, lowering it for vehicle access with the use of a remote control.

The base station uses a solar panel to keep the battery topped off. But if you’re not frequently using the system it shouldn’t take much electricity at all. An Arduino board listens for the signal from the remote control. It then unspools the wire until it lays flat across the ground and can be driven over. Once the car has passed another click of the remote raises the gate back into position. There’s even a version that uses two gates which make up a cattle corridor.

We were thinking that it would be easy enough for the cows to push right through this. But after seeing the clip after the break it’s obvious they like to follow the rules.

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R2D2 Collects Valentine’s Cards Like A Boss

February 16, 2013 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

Think back to your school days when each student would make a box which would receive Valentine’s cards from their friends. We have fond memories of buying cards with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. We guess this tradition is still going strong. Instead of making a receptacle out of a shoe box [Dr Franken Storer] helped his seven-year-old build this remote control R2D2 with sounds and lights. Yeah, it’s totally cheating. But who can begrudge a hacker dad a little fun?

The bot started as a desktop trash can. It features a domed top which looks just like the droid, but also has a hinged opening where the cards can be placed. To the lid he attached a tilt switch that triggers a Radio Shack sound player to provide the sounds. These sound modules are popular in a lot of projects like this doorbell hack. The final touch (aside from the droid decor on the outside) was to add a remote control car that lets his son drive R2 around.

We asked for more details and he delivered. You’ll find his lengthy description of the project after the jump.

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Infra Is A Television Made Of Infrared Pixels

January 31, 2013 by Mike Szczys 80 Comments

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This television is perfect except for its low resolution and the fact that it can’t be seen by the naked eye. [Chris Shen’s] art installation, Infra, uses 625 television remotes as pixels for a TV screen. There’s a little bit of insight to be gained from the details which [Chris] shared with EMSL.

The remote controls were all throw-aways. Even if there are problems with the buttons, battery connectors, or cases, chances are the IR led in each was still functional. So [Chris] patched into them using about 500 meters of speaker wire.

Why 625 pixel? Because that’s how many LEDs the Peggy board can handle. We’ve seen this open source LED board driving video in other projects. Here it’s been connected to each remote using Molex connectors. Each of the headers has the same pitch as a through-hole 5mm LED. The entire board was filled with them, and a mating crimp connector terminates the end of the wire coming out of each remote. This makes setup quite easy as the remotes don’t have to be installed in any particular order as long as the physical location matches Peggy’s grid.

You can get a glimpse of the piece playing video in the clip after the break.

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