The Fugue Counterpoint by Hans Fugal

IR Receiver

I've always been a software guy. I'm doing good if I can keep up with what good
computer hardware is. But a combination of needing a way to control mplayer
from the couch, poverty, and a desire to learn the useful skill of soldering
drove me to create my own serial IR receiver for use with
lirc.

I was afraid my first soldering project would be a disaster, but it really has
turned out quite nice. At least, it's nice if you don't look at the back. :-)
Check out the pictures on
flickr.

I followed the instructions from the Linux Journal
article, with some modifications. I
didn't want it inside a DB9 case, I wanted to show off my geeky creation so I
didn't cut up the perf board. I didn't want a DB9 connector, I wanted to use
cat5 cable and an RJ45 to DB9 adapter
that I had made previously. I used the IR Receiver from Radio Shack, model
276-640.
The electronics store didn't have the precise voltage regulator called for but
had one with the same output that could handle higher voltage so I got that
instead.

If I were to start fresh, I would wish I had found these
instructions
instead. The LJ instructions are good, but these ones are better. I think I'd
still use perfboard anyway, since I'm not encasing it in a DB9 hood.

The version of lirc-modules-source in Debian testing at the moment didn't
work for some reason but the version from unstable works fine. I had a hard
time finding out what model my universal remote is, but I was able to create a
lircd config file for my DVD remote easy enough, and irw recognizes it
fine.

I still have to configure mplayer but there should be nothing special to that.
So I declare my IR receiver a success! Many thanks to Von for teaching me to
solder, Jared for helping me in the initial research, and Erin for not putting
up too much resistance to the idea.