Home Hacking Projects for Geeks

118

The IR Transceiver

Part II: Home Entertainment

My power supply, like most others, has the positive terminal on the pin. Other

power supplies have the positive terminal on the ring instead. Be sure to verify that

you are connecting the positive terminal to the +5V pin of the WOL connector.

It’s now time to mount the board in the box. First you

need to mount the power harness to the box, and then

plug the WOL connector to the header on the UIRT2.

Next, mount the board using the two barrel-nut screws

that came with the D-sub connector.

If you want to get extra fancy, you can label the inputs

and outputs with dry transfers. You can also mount rub-

ber feet on the bottom of the box. Figure 6-6 shows the

finished product.

4. Build the external

connections

The best thing about the Type B

UIRT2 is that the receiver and emit-

ters are mounted on the end of cables

and plug into the device with stan-

dard stereo phono connectors. This

allows you a great deal of flexibility

in terms of placement.

Building the cables is pretty simple. First up is the

receiver cable. I wanted mine to be long enough to

run through my wall from my equipment cabinet, so I

bought 25 feet of shielded 4-conductor cable. (You actu-

ally only need 3-conductor cable, but I couldn’t find that

at my local Home Depot.)

Figure 6-7 shows how the receiver assembly goes together.

Some people complai ...