I recently bought a Logitech Harmony One remote which controlls everything in my living room,
Projector, SkyHD, DVD, Amp & Lighting. The SkyHD is a recent upgrade also, so to treat myself, I finally took the dive and bought an electric screen, its only a cheap one off ebay, but it'll do for now.
It came with a small RF remote control... I've also just upgraded from using a pair of 603 S2 B&W speakers in stereo mode, to a 5.1 system with a CC6 Center speaker, and some DS7 Surround Speakers.
The DS7 will accept a 12v trigger to switch from Monopole to Dipole mode, my current amplifier doesn't have a trigger out, so this got me thinking, I needed a way to switch the modes, and control the screen from the Harmony One... the solution? Some DIY tinkering! :D
First off I bought two of these -
2 Channel IR Receiver > Maplin
Velleman 2 Channel IR Receiver - will accept IR commands, and either pulse or trigger a relay on/off. The two channels on the first one will pulse for UP/DOWN for the screen. The first channel on the second board will pulse for STOP for the screen, and the second channel will trigger on/off to supply a 12v feed to the speakers.
Unfortunately, a monumental screwup with my camera means I've lost a load of pictures, so we jump quite a few steps forward
In this picture you can see the two boards assembled, and held apart by some plastic hex tubing and bolts. I covered the top board with a load of hot glue as I managed to break the copper circuit board under the top IR sensor by pressing on it trying to close the cover, the Velleman boards are not that strong. So I repaired it with some fine wire, and hot glued the top and bottom to protect, the bottom board is only hot glued around the IR sensor.
The black thing glued to the base is an IR repeater from Keene, a little more on this later...
You will also notice the multicoloured cables going to a white cover, and a pcb. This is the RF remote for the screen. This is the second remote that I had to buy, after I blew the first one
The adapter I was using at the time was acctually giving out 16v instead of 12v. So I'm just going to stick with using the battery in this one. I can remove the back of the cover to change it easily. And this way the aerial is retained in its housing properly.
A bit of a closer look at the IR repeater from Keene, you'll notice I've also bent the IR Sensor forward, and the bottom sensor is raised, so it can lean forward a bit more. Turns out it was totally unecessery as the IR sender gives enough output, but better to be safe than sorry!
The power connector is a temporary fix (picked up the wrong panel mount connector from Maplin!
) and isn't in that position usually!
Finally you can see it all plugged up and sat on top of the SkyHD box,
The green plug is simpy a spare 3.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack I had sitting about, this is the feed to the IR Repeater. The two phono jacks are the output to the speaker for the 12v and you can also see the RF remote on the side of the box.
The next two jobs are to get the right sized panel mount connector for the power cable. The 12v feed to the speakers are on the Normally Open section on the relay, what I plan to do next is have a socket which'll allow me to plug in a 12v trigger from an amplifier into the Normally Closed end of the relay. That way I can have amplifier controlled 12v trigger, or manual override
Sorry I lost most of the pictures! But you should get an idea from what I managed to salvage!
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