Catproof Remote Control

So, You get home from work and decide to relax by watching your favorite detective show. You plop onto the couch, turn on the TV and set the remote down next to you. It's an OK episode. Near the end, just as the detective is about to reveal the killer, your cat decides he wants some petting. He jumps up to the couch and his paw lands right on the channel button of the remote. Instead of finding out whether the killer was the ex-stripper trophy wife or the business partner with the drinking problem, there is a fat guy yelling at you that you can get three extra bottles of Super-Duper Scrubber-Upper if you order now for just $39.95.

You pay the cable bill. You should decide what's on.

Fortunately, cats don't have thumbs, so it isn't that hard to make a cat resistant remote.

I wanted one that didn't require any extra attention or effort on my part, so it had to be enabled just by picking it up. When I first thought of this, It seemed much harder than it turned out to be.

Fist, I thought of putting power switches on each side of the remote. I had to reject this because a lot of remotes keep their programming in volatile memory.

Second I thought of putting an enabling switch on the side so that the keys couldn't be activated with just a paw on top. This was unworkable because the keys are on a matrix instead of each key being a separate input to the chip.

I gave up on the idea for a while and then suddenly it occurred to me "Duh! All you need to do is prevent the LED(s) form emitting. You're such a dope!"

What you are basically going to be doing is using a switch to open the current path through the LED(s) when the remote isn't being held by a human.

Materals cost: about 50 cents if you don't have a good scrounge box, nothing if you do.

Step 1 Gather Materials

Pretty much all you need are:

Knowledge

Basic electronics (really basic).
Soldering.

Tools and materials

A micro-switch (preferably a normally closed but it is much easier to find an SPDT).
Basic soldering stuff.
A little bit of wire.
Hot glue.
Some small screwdrivers.
A utility knife.

Comments

[admin]

Hey, this is a great instructable and is very informative. Just one thing is missing... pictures! It really helps a lot when trying to follow directions so you should consider taking some photographs. Once you do that and leave me a message when you have so that we can publish your work. Thanks! Thanks for the cool instructable and we hope to publish this soon!

[Mirime]

Hey don't blame the engeineers

[w477s]

Once again, some regular schlub has to fix what the professional industrial designers failed to design correctly in the first place. <