Proposal for Portable Battery Operated IR Widget

[Tommy Tyler]

In response to a question from Liz I recently came up with a proposal for a battery operated portable Widget for use at places such as in a store or at a friend's home where a PC running IRScope might not be available. Essentially, the portable Widget captures the same data in the same way as a standard Widget, but instead of spitting it out immediately it stores the data for later transfer to a PC running the standard IRScope program. The firmware changes required should be a trivial task for anyone skilled and experienced at programming PIC microprocessors, but I have been unable to attract anyone to collaborate with me on the project. Furthermore, the availability of such a device would probably meet very little interest within the group. Consequently, I have posted my proposal HERE with details on how the standard Widget works and how to modify it for a portable version, just for the record and in case anyone shows interest in pursuing the project.

[ElizabethD]

Tommy, Wow!!
Sounds like a fabulous design, expecially the easy push to IRscope
Two questions regarding this in the the .PDF:

To make a recording, the pushbutton is pressed momentarily, kicking it into active record mode immediately. It would then have the normal 5 seconds to detect the start of an infrared signal from a
remote before timing out and aborting. A fixed capture duration would be provided, probably the same 700 mS default value used by IRScope. Successive captures would be stored with a suitable
separator until memory was full.

1. This is prone to errors. If I don't notice that it timed out, the scribled notes on paper might not match what IRscope will decode. Is there anyway to indicate that a timeout, and/or a bad learn occured?
2. Proposed memory size? How many learns would fit, more or less? 700mS isn't much to learn a bunch of signals, but I suspect its 700mS per signal.
I guess I don't yet see how it would behave.

Furthermore, the availability of such a device would probably meet very little interest within the group.

Considering lack of interest in making this thing a reality, I have to ask
1) Isn't anybody doing learning in the stores anymore and cursing the limited space in a learning remote?
2) Isn't new equipment constantly coming out with new protocols and with variants of known protocols?
3) or do we now have in the protocols and device upgrades section everything past and future making protocol writing experts obsolete?

[vickyg2003]

When I go into the store to do a capture, I just use a learning remote. Its easy to seperate the various keys into logical groups and most of my learners will learn a whole remote. I guess the guys don't carry a purse full of remotes when they go looking for an odd piece of equipment.

I LOVE my widget, but I think all the things I love about it would go away if I were trying to do a blind learn.

[Tommy Tyler]

Yes the portable Widget needs a tiny beeper or LED built in to let you know what's happening. Since 1K of memory holds 1/10 second of capture, the 2M memory chip would hold 3.3 minutes of capture, and the larger 16M memory chip would hold over 26 minutes of capture.

[Kevin Timmerman]

2 megabit == 262,144 bytes

262,144 bytes / 10,000 bytes per second = 26.2 seconds

This could easily be doubled by using a 4 bit count rather than an 8 bit count. The data rate would then be 5,000 bytes per second.

[Tommy Tyler]

Oops! I got bit by the old bits-to-bytes error. Therefore the portable should definitely use the 16Mbit chip rather than the 2Mbit, giving it nearly 3-1/2 minutes of capture time for 8-bit counter, or 7 minutes for 4-bit counter..