JP1 Remotes

[LMolland]

Hello, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the following please?

I am using ir.exe 8.04 on my Windows 7 64-bit desktop. I'm using a flash JP1.2/3 cable and a JP1 USB to EEPROM adapter. (Both from Tommy Tyler.) In ir.exe I have the interface set to JP1.x and when I click on Check Interface I get "The Interface Check Succeeded". This all applies to both my URC-8040 and URC-8060 remotes.

However, when I click "Download From Remote", the URC-8040 works fine but the URC-8060 gives the message "Jp12 read failed -1". I actually have other remotes which work fine as well (eg URC-7541), it's just the URC-8060's which give this error message. I have two of these 8060's and both fail in the same way.

I can download and upload to all remotes using my old "Simple" JP1 cable attached to my LPT1 port (I think LPT1 is "virtual com3" using the FTDI driver). So.... I'm not stuck but I'm intrigued to know why 8040 works with the USB cable and 8060 doesn't. Thanks for any guidance!

Lester

[mdavej]

Sounds like low batteries to me.

BTW, the "simple" doesn't use FTDI drivers or com ports.

Have you considered trying Remote Master instead of IR?

[LMolland]

Hi mdavej,
I ran out of ideas earlier today and I think fresh batteries was one of the things I tried, but I've just tried a brand new set of Duracells in the 8060 and I still get the same message. I swapped these new batteries into my 8040 and was able to download from the 8040 remote without problem.

Yes, thanks, I got confused regarding FTDI because I was swapping between the "Flash JP1.2/3 and JP1 USB to EEPROM Adapter" and the "Simple LPT1" cables.

I also tried RMIR v2.03 Alpha 18 earlier and had the same issue. The 8060 gives an "Error downloading from remote..." message and asks for a raw download to be posted, but when I ran the raw download it was completely filled with zeros (00) apart from the row and column labels, so I didn't post it. (Of course I can upload it if it might be useful?) I've just tried the remotes again in RMIR and still get the same error with the 8060 while the 8040 download is fine.

Thanks for your reply... is there anything else I could try? (I can always stick with the old LPT1 cable for the 8060 if necessary.)

[LMolland]

I'm still trying to understand why my URC-8040 works OK but my URC-8060 doesn't. I've downloaded JP1xTest and run the batch file on these remotes connected via a flash JP1.2/3 cable and JP1 USB to EEPROM adapter :-

URC-7541
URC-8040
URC-8060

The resulting message is always the same (identical):-

*** FOUND A JP1.2/3 COMPATIBLE REMOTE ON COM3! ***
Signature is
Memory address is $0000
Memory size is $0800 (2048)

Is it normal to have no signature displayed?

My cable/adapter combo works fine with URC-7541 and URC-8040, and the USB cable without the adapter works fine on a URC7960 "Smart control".

[3FG]

Based on old posts here and also the RDF file, I believe that the URC-8060 has a 4K EEPROM. The URC-8040 has a 2K EEPROM while it seems that the UC-7541 was made in either 1K or 2K. So that's one difference for the URC-8060. I know that Kevin's JP1 to Serial adapter circuit design is capable of working with 4K EEPROMs (24C32).

JP1xTest was written and distributed before the JP1 to Serial adapter was developed, so the included JP12Serial.dll file is too old and doesn't fully support the adapter. In the JP1xTest folder, try replacing JP12Serial.dll with the one distributed with IR 8.03 (or newer). Of course that won't help getting this to work with IR.exe, but it might give us some additional clue.

[LMolland]

The DLL file in my JP1xTest folder was named jp1xserial.dll and the one in my IR Version 804 folder was named jp12serial.dll.

I temporarily removed jp1xserial.dll from the JP1xTest folder and replaced it with a copy of jp12serial.dll which I re-named jp1xserial.dll. (Just to see what happened!)

Running JP1xTest.BAT whilst the URC-8060 is connected via the flash JP1.2/3 cable and JP1 USB to EEPROM adapter then gives:-

*** FOUND A JP1.2/3 COMPATIBLE REMOTE ON COM3! ***
Signature is rìKAMEKA
Memory address is $0000
Memory size is $0800 (2048)

and for the URC-8040:-

*** FOUND A JP1.2/3 COMPATIBLE REMOTE ON COM3! ***
Signature is <<QEKA4EK
Memory address is $0000
Memory size is $0800 (2048)

My 8060 RDF is "KAMEKAM0 (URC-8060 Kameleon).rdf"

Which has these first two lines:-
Name=One For All URC-8060 Kameleon (4K eeprom)
EepromSize=$1000

My 8040 RDF is "EKA4EKA0 (URC-8040 4 Device Kameleon).rdf

Which has these first two lines:-
Name=One For All URC-8040 Kameleon (4 device)
EepromSize=$800

Is there a way to find the actual EEPROM size of a remote? In the old "Remote Chart" file the URC-8060 is listed as 2k EEPROM.

[3FG]

Bear in mind that JP1xTest is not intended to be used with an adapter/JP1 remote combination. I do think your tests show useful information.

1) The "signature" is being read correctly. JP1 remotes place a 2 byte checksum at the beginning of memory and follow that with 8 bytes of signature, while JP1.2/1.3 remotes put the 8 bytes of signature first and follow that with the 2 bytes of checksum. Presumably JP1xTest is reading the first 8 bytes, and assuming that is the signature. Still it strongly implies that the adapter can read from the EEPROM.

2) Determining the size of an EEPROM from reading it is non-trivial, but the adapter is able to figure it out, and the more recent versions of JP12Serial.dll know how to ask the adapter about the size. If JP1xTest uses JP12Serial to determine the size of the EEPROM, then it follows that your 8060 does have a 2K EEPROM.

So I would try modifying the RDF file for the 8060 to say EepromSize=$800, and see if that improves the situation with IR.exe.

[LMolland]

I tried modifying the RDF file for the 8060 to read EepromSize=$800 but still get the same error message "Jp12 read failed -1" when trying to download.

I also then tried changing the next few lines which seem to refer to memory addresses to match the URC-8040:-
AdvCodeAddr=$018..$0FF
UpgradeAddr=$100..$3FE
LearnedAddr=$400..$7FD
(I guess a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing!!)

Anyway that didn't improve anything either so I changed it all back.

I've taken the URC-8060 apart to see if I can establish the EEPROM size (not really knowing what to look for). There is a chip which has printed on it "PIC162622A", so I searched online for that and found a datasheet which listed the following spec:-

"Microchip"

EPROM-Based 8-Bit CMOS Microcontroller

PIC162622A Memory 2K Data Memory 128

I would be interested to know whether that indicates my URC-8060 is actually 2k memory?

But I feel that maybe I should just settle for what I've learned and stick to using my old style LPT1 cable because, as I said in my first post, it does work. Thanks very much 3FG and mdavej for your interest and help.

(Thanks also to binky123 for working out how to make the latest IR, and RMIR, handle 64 bit Windows 7, which was another stumbling block I found when recently revisiting JP1 after a few years "gap" - I guess a lot of people only pick it up again when needing to cater for some new AV equipment.)