How to control your TV with an Arduino!

So. This Instructable will show you how to control anything controllable by IR, or Infrared light.

This includes cameras, TV's, DVD players, VCR's, you get the point.

I will be showing you how to receive the codes, and then how to transmit them.

Objects required for this project:
1x Arduino (any kind as long as it has whats called "PWM" which I will explain)
1x IR LED (you can get these from any TV remote)
1x IR reciever (see picture)
1x USB A to B wire for programming the Arduino
1x Computer to program the Arduino with
1x Arduino software
and the .PDE files I will include

This website really helped me out a lot with this. http://www.ladyada.net/learn/sensors/ir.html

THIS IS NOT MY CODE, I DO NOT CLAIM OWNERSHIP. I merely copied and pasted the code and rewrote the instructions to make this easy to understand. 

IF YOU DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL WITH THIS CODE I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE (which I think is probably not a problem).

Step 1 Preparing to Receive Signals

First you want to get the IR LED Receiver mentioned in the introduction.

You can get one here: http://www.adafruit.com/products/157
They cost $2 not including shipping and handling.

So you want to hook up the receiver according to the first picture.

I highly suggest putting both the IR Receiver and the remote in a shoe box or something that is dark (the same shoe  box of course). This will insure there will be the least amount of interference and to have clearer code so you don't have to program your Arduino 12 times for one simple task. Also, make sure you are out of the way of people watching TV.

And you want to download the file named IR_RECORD.PDE and open it into the Arduino program.

Plug your Arduino in with the USB cable I hope you have and proceed to step 2!

Comments

[matt.e.jenkins]

You can get the IR Receiver from just about any old VCR, TV, DVD player, anything that had a normal IR remote. I have a hand full of those sensors that I took from all the old broken devices i have laying around. Thanks for the tutorial.

[Wally_Z]

You're welcome! Show this to your friends and see what they make!

[cmartinez4]

Do you need a resistor for the IR receiver?

[wmain]

You could define a typedef as

typedef struct irCode {
int off;
int on;
} codes[34];

codes[0] = {36328, 280};
.
.
.
codes[33] = {700, 240};

then use this code to send it

for (cx=0; cx<34; cx++) {
delayMicroseconds(codes[cx].off);
pulseID(codes[cx].on);
}

[dudesurge]

i love is, i tore apart an old ball mouse and got some IR-LEDs but the receivers didnt quite work as well as i'd hoped so i ripped one i knew would work out of a vcr and the led from the mouse worked but its so dim is has to be pretty close but im gonna tare apart the remote that went with the vcr, but im rambling again, i do have a question, did u write a code to control multiple buttons? im sure its not to hard to do as ive been working with my arduino for a few weeks now but if its already out there id prefer not to go thru the hassle

[Computothought]

Hmmm, gives me an idea for a laptop project.