Possible to kill IR Receiver?

ehart · Post by **ehart** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:05 pm

Hi,

Is it possible to kill an IR receiver with an IR blaster? I use the Radio Shack 15-2117, and the IR receiver on my preamp has slowly died over the last year or so.

Cordially,

Eric

zaphod7501 · Post by **zaphod7501** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:47 pm

Personally, I wouldn't think so. An IR receiver will stand up to direct sunlight which is a little more energetic that a little IR LED. Static electricity and power surges would probably do more damage.

Does the preamp respond the same if you try the remote directly (not through the RF extender?

Of course, the obvious, has the blaster slipped slightly?

Do you have any halogen lamps? (they produce tremendous amount of IR and electrical noise)

ehart · Post by **ehart** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:16 am

Hi Zaphod,

The preamp doesn't respond well to the normal remote either, even with the blaster turned off.

Behaves the same with all lights turned off.

It seems unlikely to me that the blaster would kill the receiver, too, just had a moment of doubt.

zaphod7501 · Post by **zaphod7501** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:45 pm

And of course the other obvious problem: weak batteries. The extender doesn't amplify the IR signals, only passes it along.

underquark · Post by **underquark** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:00 pm

It's also possible that you could see this if the receiver was relatively shielded and had moved even a fraction of an inch backwards through time. I had a DVD player that had a very directional receiver and I cured it by peeling back the shiny, sticky fascia and snipping off a vertical piece of plastic that lay next to, and partially obscured, the receiver. At the same time I scraped off a small square of the silvering and coloured it black in order to identify the receiver location from the outside should I ever need to point an IR blaster at it.

ehart · Post by **ehart** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:36 pm

What I found is that the blaster (from my wireless 15-2117) is indeed confusing (not killing) the IR sensor on this device. I had thought this wasn't true, but apparently turning the blaster to face away from the devices wasn't enough. I had to power it completely off.

Unplugging the "blaster" cures all the weird glitches -- settings on the device changing themselvers randomly, slow or partial response to my remote, that sort of thing. The IR blaster operates prety much continuously -- you can see the IR light flashing even when not using the remote.

It would be great to fix this if possible, as my gear is physically laid out assuming that the wireless blaster will work.

Any suggestions? I have several of the blasters, I've replaced it once and there's no difference.

Anyone know what frequency is being used by those things?

Is there another (third-party?) base station that I can purchase that will work with the 15-2117?

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:23 am

Does the blaster work OK when you use the 15-2117 from another room? If so, the problem is that your devices cannot handle two "remotes" sending the same signal at the same time. One potential solution would be to stop the 15-2117 from sending an IR signal at all, so it would just send an RF signal to the base station which in turn would send an IR signal to your devices. You could make this happen by covering the IR window of the 15-2117 with electrical tape (preferably black).

Alternatively, you could just unplug the base unit when you're in the main room.

If you think the problem is random noise being picked up by the base station, here's a fix you could try...

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mb ... i?3749,1#6

zaphod7501 · Post by **zaphod7501** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:42 am

Is there a receiver in the same room as the blaster? If so they can create a feedback loop between them causing a continuous send/receive process.

If one of the receivers in another part of the house were bad, it could be sending constant signals. Try covering/unplugging each of them for testing.

Capn Trips · Post by **Capn Trips** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:24 am

zaphod7501 wrote:Is there a receiver in the same room as the blaster? If so they can create a feedback loop between them causing a continuous send/receive process.

If it's a third-party blaster that converts received IR INTO RF, then that's possible, but I don't believe that's the scenario painted here (unless I misunderstood the description). If this is the 2117 UEI-made blaster, there is only the RF transmitter in the remote itself, there is no other source of RF in that setup.

ehart · Post by **ehart** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:03 am

Sorry I wasn't clear. By "blaster" I meant the "base station" for the 15-2117. It receives an RF signal and puts out an IR signal.

It behaves the same way when the 15-2117 is in another room. Which is normally how I use it -- the gear is located in a closet!

If I unplug the base station and point the 15-2117 directly at the device, it works fine.

There are two devices that this base station talks to. Interestingly, one of them has no trouble at all.

The base station shows constant IR flashing (you can see it going) even when no remote is in use. So I'm guessing there's some interference going on.

Rob, great link! I'm inclined to try the mods. I'm not an EE, but I have some experience with soldering, and more importantly, I have about half a dozen of these bases and only need one (I bought a bunch of 15-2117s back when). I'll let you know how it goes.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:01 pm

ehart wrote:Sorry I wasn't clear. By "blaster" I meant the "base station" for the 15-2117. It receives an RF signal and puts out an IR signal.

When we talk about the IR Blaster, we're talking about the optional wire that is part of the 15-2117 set. This wire can be plugged into the base station and can be used to control a single device.

ehart wrote:It behaves the same way when the 15-2117 is in another room. Which is normally how I use it -- the gear is located in a closet!

The base station shows constant IR flashing (you can see it going) even when no remote is in use. So I'm guessing there's some interference going on.

Based on this I would say that you are a good candidate for that mod, so give it a try.

ehart · Post by **ehart** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:25 pm

Oh boy. I opened the base station, and the part involved is a tiny "surface mount" part. I don't know if you even can use a regular soldering iron on this baby. So a few questions:

1. What sort of iron would you use to remove a tiny surface mount resistor? (I may or may not even attempt this).

2. Any suggestions on a good IR repeater? I've realized that the unit that's having trouble with the base station, I only need to control from the living room. So I could use an IR repeater for that unit, and leave the base station to only control the unit that needs to be controlled from all over the house (and which doesn't seem bothered by the "noise" from the base station).

unclemiltie · Post by **unclemiltie** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:01 pm

I've used the setup from home controls for mine. My DishPVR 721 (with a hard disk in it) is in the basement, and I use it for my 2nd floor bedroom TV. The ChannelPlus unit sends the IR over the COAX cable that the video signal comes in on. One wall plate that the IR receiver plugs into goes in the room where you have the remote, another wall plate that the IR blaster plugs into goes where the equipment is.

This has worked fantastic for me for about 4 years now. No UHF that I have to worry about placement, just the wire that I already had to string to run the video.

This is sort of what I have, but more expensive. Home Controls had a kit with the IR receiver, the two wall plates, the power block for the basement and one IR blaster for something like $75. I don't know if they have it anymore. (should have bought more than one!)

http://www.homecontrols.com/cgi-bin/mai ... -Interface