Using An IR Remote With Your Arduino

July 23, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 9 Comments

If you’ve ever needed a short-range remote control for a project, [firestorm] is here to help you out. He put up a great tutorial on using an IR remote to do just about anything with everyone’s favorite microcontroller platform.

[firestorm] used the Arduino IRremote library to decode the button presses on his remote. After uploading the IR receive demo included in the library, the Arduino spit out hex codes of what the IR receiver was seeing. [firestorm] wrote these down, and was able to program his Arduino to respond to each individual button press.

After figuring out the IR codes for his remote, [firestorm] threw a shift register into his bread board and attached a seven-segment LED. Since [firestorm] knows the codes for the number buttons on his remote, it’s very easy to have the LED display flash a number when the corresponding button on the remote is pressed.

A single seven-segment display might not be extremely useful, but with [firestorm]’s tutorial, it’s easy to give your Arduino some remote control capabilities with a simple IR receiver. Not bad for a few dollars in parts.

Use Your TV Remote As An HID Mouse

July 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Vinod’s] latest project lets him use a TV remote control as a mouse. It may not sound like much, but he did it with a minimum of hardware and packed in the maximum when it comes to features.

He’s using an ATmega8 to read the remote control signals and provide USB connectivity. With the V-USB stack he enumerates the device as an HID mouse. One note of warning, he used the PID/VID pair from the USBasp programmer project. If you use that programmer you’ll need to uninstall the drivers to get this to work (we think this is only necessary on a Windows box).

The cursor can be moved in eight directions using the number pad on the remote. The numeral five falls in the center of the directional buttons so [Vinod] mapped that to the left click, with the zero key serving as right click. He even included the scroll wheel by using the volume buttons. The firmware supports cursor acceleration. If you hold one direction the cursor will move slowly at first,then pick up speed. Fine adjustments can be made by single clicking the button. Check out his demonstration embedded after the break.

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Need A Quadcopter Transmitter? Use A PS2 Controller!

July 16, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

After [Pyrofer] built a quadcopter, he purchased a cheap 6-channel transmitter made in China. Unfortunately, that transmitter was terrible so he took an old PS2 controller and built his own.

For his build, [Pyrofer] broke out the analog sticks and wired them to an AVR housed in the handle of the controller. The AVR sent commands to a 2.4 GHz radio transmitter powered by a small LiPo battery. With the addition of a few tact switches behind the shoulder buttons of the controller, [Pyrofer] has four axes of control with a few buttons for changing modes on his quadcopter.

This build really doesn’t hold a candle to some of the awesome DIY RC transmitters we’ve seen, but we’ve got to give [Pyrofer] credit for coming up with a very simple and easy build. Just about everyone has a PS2 or XBox controller lying around, and with a few extra hardware bits it’s easy to bodge up a decent remote control.

[Pyrofer] used a project called Funkenschlag to generate PPM signals, so if you feel the need to replicate this project send it in when you’re done.

Sonic Screwdriver Controls Your TV, Doesn’t Work On Wood

July 12, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

Sure, you could pretend to be the Doctor with a simple plastic sonic screwdriver. It might even have a LED on the tip, and if you’re really splurging a tiny speaker for sound effects. Yep, you could make due with an inelegant version of the Doctor’s Gallifreyan army knife, or you could get this amazingly detailed sonic screwdriver replica.

Instead of a plastic or resin replica, this replica of the 11th Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is made out of die-cast, copper plated metal with a jade green polycarbonate tip. This replica has a few tricks up its sleeve; instead of just lighting up and providing a few sound effects at opportune times, it also can serve as a programmable infrared remote with a gesture interface thanks to a three-axis accelerometer. If that’s not enough, the copper ‘rods’ just below the tip also serve as a touch interface for the microcontroller on board.

For as many jaw dropping light saber builds we’ve seen we’re genuinely surprised we haven’t seen more sonic screwdriver builds. It’s really cool this toy can serve as a remote control, but we’re betting a few Hackaday readers can replicate this replica with an extendable jewel cage and maybe even a Bluetooth gesture controller.

If you’d like your own sonic screwdriver, you can pick one up at ThinkGeek (for the US) or Forbidden Planet (for the UK). After the break is a video released by ThinkGeek showing off the this truly awesome remote control.

Tip ‘o the hat to [Zerocool] for sending this one in.

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Remote Control With An XBee And A Propeller

July 11, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

If you’ve been playing with electronics for long enough, eventually you’ll need a nice remote control transmitter to control your RC car, airplane, or any other robotics project you have lying around. With these robotics projects comes the problem remote control, and the XBee Handheld Controller may be just the ticket to remotely control any project that comes off your workbench.

This isn’t the first remote controller we’ve seen that does just about everything, but it is the first one to include an XBee wireless transceiver to easily interface to your robotics project. The controller comes in two models, the Q4, which uses four Playstation-like joysticks, and the Q2, which uses proper remote control gimbal joysticks. Both the controllers have a slew of buttons, toggle switches, four rotary pots and a 2×20 LCD display.

After the break you can check out [Paul]’s pitch explaining what these controllers can do and showing off a hexapod robot under the control of his Q4 controller. A very neat project, and we can’t wait to see this controller out in the field.

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Fighting Over The Frat’s TV Remote

June 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Colin Bookman] lives in a Fraternity house and apparently the remote for the cable box has a way of walking off. He figured out a method to give everyone control of the TV channel in one form or another.

The cable box can be seen perched on that shelf, and [Colin’s] addition is the wooden box sitting on the floor. Inside is an Arduino board, and the cable snaking out of the enclosure is an IR LED. This give the Arduino the ability to send remote control commands to the TV box. The two arcade buttons on the front will switch the channel up or down.

But this is hardly a remote control replacement since you have to get up to use it, so he went a few steps further. The Arduino board was paired with an Ethernet shield. It serves up a web page that has a virtual keypad. So anyone with a smart phone or laptop can log into the server and start changing the channels. We’re not sure if this provides relief from a missing remote, or promotes impromptu fist fights when brothers can’t agree on what to watch. It certainly opens up the possibility of long-distance trolling as you could be sitting in class and decide to change the channel to Lifetime every ten minutes or so.

If you don’t have an Ethernet shield handy we’ve seen a similar setup that uses Bluetooth instead the network.

Adding A Router And Wireless Camera To A Remote Controlled Helicopter

June 11, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

Last Christmas, [bonafide] received a WiFi enabled remote control helicopter from his employer. The heli is an interesting bit of kit, able to be controlled with an Android or iDevice. Being the good tinkerer he is, [bonafide] took a screwdriver to his Wi-Fli Bladerunner Helicopter and reengineered the toy to use an off-the-shelf wireless router.

The protocol used by the Wi-Fli helicopter is closed source, but a few people have had their hand at reverse engineering this cool toy. Instead of simply controlling the helicopter over WiFi, [bonafide] wanted to add a few unsupported features like sending images from a webcam. This isn’t supported in the toy’s firmware, so after a valiant attempt at flashing new firmware, [bonafide] decided to replace the electronics with a WiFi router.

In the stock configuration, the helicopter receives commands from an RT5350F-based WiFi module. This module communicates to the servos and motors with a serial connection. [bonafide] replaced the WiFi module with a very small router capable of running OpenWRT. The new router was easily configured to send commands to the motors, and allowed [bonafide] to add a small keychain webcam to stream video back to his desktop.

Interestingly, the makers of the WiFli helicopter, Interactive Toy Concepts, are putting out a streaming-video version of this toy next fall. The current version of the WiFli helicopter may hit the Toys ‘r Us clearance bin before that, so if you’d like your own unmanned aerial drone [bonafide]’s may be worth looking over.

Special thanks to [MS3FGX] for sending this one in. Also, the non-coral cache version of [bonafide]’s site is here, but try not to turn his server into a pile of molten slag.