IR repeater or blaster

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jonherries

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#64493 16-Jul-2010 14:59

Like most of you my home theatre stuff is in a cabinet. What I hate is having this open to turn on the stereo etc.

So thought I would look for an ir repeater/blaster.

It doesn't seem that anyone does a nice basic suck it in spit it out versio nof this. Either you need a custom set up with in wall wiring to do a whole house (blueeye.co.nz) or you have to have some massive ugly wireless jobby...

Any ideas?

Jon

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#352364 16-Jul-2010 16:01

This works great for me: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/TVs/Remotes/auction-303175652.htm

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CYaBro

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#352397 16-Jul-2010 17:21

hairy1: This works great for me: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/TVs/Remotes/auction-303175652.htm

Yup I agree, I installed a few of those for customers and they work great.

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Nety

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#352417 16-Jul-2010 18:18

Just one warning with the ones listed if you have a Harmony remote you might have some problems with it.

I brought a couple but could never get the macros to work correctly with it. What a while ago but I think it was my receiver which would stop accepting commands so not switch to the right input after being turned on. After around a minute it would start working.

However have heard of others with Harmony remotes that have been fine.

Was a shame because the idea is brilliant.

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jonherries

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#352439 16-Jul-2010 19:33

Yeah, I had seen those, but don't fancy the big UFO (i am guessing the receiver) bit.

I like the idea of the stealth blue eye as the cupboard for the ht gear is under the tv, (ie.
don't need the wireless), but it has three emitters you adhere to your components, which sounds annoying I just want a blaster...

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hairy1

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#352445 16-Jul-2010 19:41

The UFO sits in the cupboard next to your AV equipment. It is actually quite small, it is 10 cm in diameter.

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jonherries

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#352450 16-Jul-2010 19:44

Ahhhh that sounds great, I think I will get one of those then.

Thanks
Jon

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buzzy

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#353923 20-Jul-2010 14:25

Would this do what you want?

http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=KC5432

hairy1

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#353937 20-Jul-2010 14:39

Hey Buzzy,

I spent 2 hours building this kit and another 3 hours trying to get it to work. In the end I gave up and bought the x-ray. I should have saved myself the heartache from the start.

I couldn't get it to work with either my tv or the mysky. Not techy enough to see where the problem lay but all my soldering looked good. There are some threads around that say that it does work with mysky.

Cheers, Matt.

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buzzy

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#353979 20-Jul-2010 15:18

Ahhh... didn't realise it was a DIY kit. It doesn't look like they do it preassembled either, which is a shame. I wonder whether any of the Hi-Fi stores do a similar thing?

CYaBro

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#354001 20-Jul-2010 15:49

Nety: Just one warning with the ones listed if you have a Harmony remote you might have some problems with it.

I brought a couple but could never get the macros to work correctly with it. What a while ago but I think it was my receiver which would stop accepting commands so not switch to the right input after being turned on. After around a minute it would start working.

However have heard of others with Harmony remotes that have been fine.

Was a shame because the idea is brilliant.

I've used the Xray device with Harmony remotes and never had a problem.
Of course if you have a Harmony that has it's own rechargable battery then the Xray device won't work as it replaces a normal AA or AAA battery.

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jonherries

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#354023 20-Jul-2010 16:28

Hi,

Have a macbook with a ir receiver and along with DVD player and receiver in the cabinet (I have an L5 ir remote for my iphone to control these).

The blue-eye one might a goer as for $149 it has three emitters and according to the seller you can use an emitter as a blaster if not too far from the receiver (ie. the macbook), presumably you can see my problem which is portability of the macbook which I want to retain.

The kit at jaycar, presumably this comes with a marked pcb all the components in the box and some instructions? Or is this too complex and all I need to do is solder the connections?

Jon

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hairy1

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#354025 20-Jul-2010 16:35

The kit was reasonably easy to assemble. It is all marked on the PCB but I couldn't tell what way up the IC's went. If you want to pay for a courier I can send you mine if you like and you can see if you can get it going.

Cheers.

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hairy1

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#354026 20-Jul-2010 16:36

The xray also can be used as a single blaster according to the package and you can buy multiple emitters for it.

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jonherries

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#354035 20-Jul-2010 16:48

Its only $32.50 and I was wondering what I was going to do this weekend... thanks for the help guys.

Jon

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LookingUp

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#358839 29-Jul-2010 21:04

Sorry to be late to add my 10c on this one - I made the Jaycar kit a couple of years back, and it works well :-) I'm probably going to add a few more remote transmitters to it at some point soon, and if anyone's interested in how it goes I'll post the result.

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