IR Remote Control

Inspiration

After creating several different projects that all used an IR signal I decided that I would create a universal remote to control them all with. It can control an RCA DVD player, a philips TV and a homebrew IR to RS232 receiver. I decided to make the remote from plexiglas as I had a lot of it lying around and have experience working with it.

Remote Modeling

As I do with most of my projects I decided to create a 3D model of the remote before tring to build it. I used eMachine Shop's 2d droawing program to create the dimensional outlinse of the pieces before importing the dxf files into Google Sketchup.

Remote Control Front

Here is what the finised remote control looked like from the front. The buttons are salvaged from a junk pile from a place that I used to work. The layers of plexiglas are held together with methanel chloride. The top and bottom 1/8" layers are held on with screws that are tapped into the middle layers.

Remote Control Back

This is what the back of the remote looks like. You can see the four AAA batteries that power the remote.

Remote Control Back Open

When the back is removed you can see the double sided PCB. The chip on the left is a I2C port expander that is used to control the LEDs and the chip on the right is a PIC 16F628A. I used surface mount parts just to make the thing smaller. The buttons are setup in a 6x3 matrix.

Remote Control Front Close Up

Here is a nice image of what the front looks like. The LEDs are used to show what type of device s being controled. The front cover was painstackingly cut out by hand using a scroll saw.

Remote Control IR Led

The IR led pokes out through the front of the remote. The led is driven by a transistor and pulsed with a lot of current to improve the range.

Remote Control witch

Power to the remote is controlled by a little switch that I super glued to the back panel.