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The IR Transceiver

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Chapter 6, Control Your Home Theater

Project Overview

In this project you’re going to build a UIRT2 Type B device and enclose it

in a project box with its own power supply. You’ll be configuring software

that enables you to interpret the signals received by the UIRT through a

receiver you’ll build yourself, and you’ll also transmit IR signals using IR

emitters you’ll build.

If you’d prefer to not build your own, you can contact Luc Degrande. Luc is

the man behind the UIRT2, and is willing to assemble and test one for you

for a small fee. I recommend building it yourself, though; it’s much more

satisfying to make something work when you’ve built it by hand. And if I

can pull it off with my mediocre soldering skills, you certainly can too!

The IR Transceiver

This phase of the project revolves around the assembly of a Universal

Infrared Transceiver (UIRT2). There are basically two types of UIRT2 mod-

ules available: Type A and Type B.

Type A is an external version that connects to your PC via a serial cable and

has an IR receiver and a pair of emitters mounted directly on the board.

Type B also communicates over a serial cable and is meant to be mounted

internally using one of the expansion bays of your PC case. The main dif-

ference between the two, at least to my mind, is that the Type B device sup-

ports IR receivers and emitters connected by cable. ...