ARRX12G Help

[Qwerky]

On other Xsights in EZ-RC, making a "Good Night" activity did just that. So you may want to try a new config in EZ-RC just as an experiment to see what Good Night or Shutdown does and how it looks in RMIR.

Thanks Dave. I created a new config on the website, giving it just a TV, and then the Good Night activity, and saved to remote. The Good Night activity runs for a seemingly very long period, and then ends with the Main screen, rather than the Activities screen.

Looking at the activity, I see that the TV Power Off step has a delay of eight seconds, which accounts for the long run time [Just to confirm, this is just a delay following this step, before the next step, and not actually sending the IR for that period of time, correct? I ask because, during that time, the screen shows "Sending IR".].

The next, and final step in the activity is the LCDCancel button, with a 0.2 second delay.

So, I edited the activity to change the delay of each step to 0.1 seconds, and changed the Button:LCDCancel to Button:Activities, and tested. This time, after the activity, the remote ends up on the Good Night Activity screen, which shows all the TV soft buttons, and it has an Assist? button again.

Looking again at the activity, I see that it does have a step in the power assist area, which was there from the website; so how come the original website activity ended on the Main screen, rather than with an Assist? button?

Next, I removed the power assist step, and re-tested. This time, there is no Assist? button, but the activity still ends on the Good Night Activity screen, showing all the TV soft buttons, rather than on the Activity screen or even the Main screen. Just for completeness, I tried lengthening the delay of each step, but that made no difference.

So, I changed the Button:Activities step back to Button:LCDCancel, and re-tested. This time, the activity ends by returning to the Main screen, like the original downloaded from the website. Well, that's better than leaving it on a device, I suppose, though not as nice has having it go to the Activities screen.

[Qwerky]

a set of names of the form Button:xxx, one of which is Button:Activities. These are there to enable you to include a button press in a macro for any of the special buttons that can't have normal functions assigned.

Hi Graham, thanks, but those special buttons are what I have been trying to use, and cannot get them to work. See above post.

[mathdon]

Hi, Qwerky. You seem to be right, that it is some limitation in the remote. The odd thing is that if you remove the LCDCancel button from the macro, do System Off and then manually press LCDCancel, you are left in the Activities screen but when LCDCancel is included in the macro, you are left in the Main screen.

I find that if I put any of the other special buttons after, or instead of, the LCDCancel then it always leaves me in the System Off activity. A final LCDCancel is the only special button that seems to be supported by the remote, and that has a different action in the macro than when pressed manually. So I think you have gone as far as you can with this. I agree that there is no way to get the remote to finish in the Activities screen.

[Qwerky]

Hi Graham, I concur with what you say. My testing indicates the same things; thanks for the confirmation.

It is only a minor limitation, and not too upsetting.

[Qwerky]

So, I don't know what's happened, but my 12G seems no longer able to learn any codes. Whenever I learn some buttons and then load them from the remote into RM, it shows the list of key, but most say "no protocol". I thought perhaps the remote was getting low on memory, so I factory reset the remote (I have my config saved), and then tried learning a bunch of new devices. But in RM, the same thing... of 200 buttons, all but about 12 have no protocol. I've uploaded both the download, and the raw download, here, hoping someone can identify the issue.

[3FG]

FYI, only one of the files loads into RMIR. When looking at the learned signals, if you see **none**, click on it and a details window will open. Then click on Advanced Details to see the actual durations of the light flashes in microseconds for the recorded IR. Positive values mean On and negative values mean Off. Compare the unrecognized learns to one of the NEC learns to see what a good learn should look like.

Most of the learns are extremely poor. My first guess is batteries-- it takes more voltage to do learns. Second, once you know you have fresh batteries, try varying the distance between the two remote and check the learns periodically in RMIR. You should be able to see when you get close to the optimal distance. Finally make sure that the learning remote is prepared to learn before pressing the button on the OEM remote. Also make sure that you aren't moving the remotes while learning.

[Qwerky]

Thank you. Looking at the advanced details in comparison, I see what you mean; good info.

My first guess is batteries-- it takes more voltage to do learns.

It wasn't completely clear to me from your post, whether you meant to have fresh batteries in the learning remote, or in the teaching remote (or both). More below.

Short Story: Changing the batteries in the teaching remote solved the issue. As to why in the teaching remote, see following.

Long Story: All of the previous learning I had done with this remote (as in earlier posts in this thread) were done from OEM remotes, and worked flawlessly. This last group, however, was not taught from an OEM remote, but from another universal remote. In fact, I do not even have the three TV remotes that were taught to the 12G, represented in the file I uploaded; they came from the database in the universal remote (for reasons why, see below sections).

So, after making the above post, I went and got my OEM TV remote, and the other universal remote, and taught six buttons from the OEM remote, and the identical six buttons from the database of the universal remote, to the 12G (because the 12G is limited to 12 learned soft buttons per device). On inspection in RM, the six from the OEM remote were all good, and the six from the universal remote were all bad (even though the universal remote still operated the equipment fine). So, new batteries in the universal (teaching) remote, and issue solved.

Background (in case anyone is interested): At this point, the 12G is set up to my liking, with the exception that the HTPC device in the remote is not yet configured. The HTPC will be using a FLIRC, so it does not require any specific device/type/code in the remote; anything that the FLIRC can learn, is acceptable. Therefore, the only restriction is that it cannot be the same as any other device already programmed into the remote (otherwise it would operate both devices at the same time).

The catch is that I have another programmable remote, a URC MX-850, which I have used for years (always programming it myself as controlled equipment changed), and for which the ARRX12G is basically a backup. So, I need to have both remotes configured with an identical device to operate the HTPC, and it can't be from any of the OEM remotes of equipment I have in use.

Therefore, I decided to selected a few devices from the MX-850 database (an LG TV, a Panasonic TV, and a Samsung TV, as recommended in the FLIRC forums), and teach them to the 12G, so that I could compare the learned codes to corresponding devices in the 12G, as I learned to do earlier in this thread, to ensure I was setting up the HTPC device the same in both remotes.

Question: Is there a better way to transport a complete device setup between the 12G and another programmable remote?