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Hack a wireless home automation system to be USB controlled using two AVR microcontrollers! Check out the video! The system is really more responsive...
There are two ways of hacking an RF remote to be controlled by a computer or a microcontroller. The lame way: Soldering wires onto the button pads on...
You will need: 1x wireless home automation kit 1x project box 1x USB type B connector 2x 3.6v zener diode 1x 8.2v zener diode ...
I assumed that the remote had a separate RF module. Let's crack it open and check if this is the case. Eeey! It sure does! The little green board ins...
The remote is powered by a 9V battery. My logic analyzer is only rated for 5 volts, so I want to check out what's going on with the DATA line before h...
The oscilloscope is a great tool, but to see what's really going on with that data signal, it's a lot easier to use a logic analyzer. The logic analy...
Ok, so at this point I just have a bunch of short and long pulses, and I have no idea what it means! The remote has a small button under the battery ...
So I know which bits to ignore, the start bit and network ID bits. But I still don't know how the remote represents 0 and 1. The remote has buttons f...
At this point I know how 0 and 1 is represented, and I think I know which bits represent the lamp address. I also think that the last two bits are som...
At this point I know what everything inside the data frame is. However, I have no idea how the checksum is calculated. I started reading about checks...
So now we know what everything is, the only thing left to do is figure out the timing of the signals. Each bit is made up of a period of low, and a p...
I know how it works, now lets try to recreate the result. I set up a timer on an ATmega8. The ATmega is running at 12MHz. A timer is set up with a ...
I was quite happy with the result from the timer interrupt function. I expected everything to work when i plugged in the RF module... but it didn't :/...
The circuit is pretty simple. All the complicated stuff is inside the RF module. The main part is an ATmega8 AVR microcontroller. A USB connector is ...
Before i turn on the soldering iron, I want to check if everything works the way it's supposed to. I've only used USB one time before, and never with...
Before the chip is removed from the breadboard, it needs some software. The software is written in C and based on an example project from Objective D...
I have a nice little box that I want my project to live inside. A couple of things had to be done to make this work. 1) The smallest circuit board i...
Finally, I get to use my soldering iron :D The RF module takes up almost half the space inside the little box, so I had to make the circuit very comp...
If you don't want to sacrifice your remote control, you can also buy an RF module. The oscillator on the RF module has the text 433.92 written on it,...
Time to see if all my hard work has payed off. Everything works :D Also, it can switch the lights a lot faster than the original remote :)...
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Nice Oscilloscope btw, looks like an expensive one. Sparkfun has a really nice usb oscilloscope just like the logic analyzer you used/referenced. Both of them are at the bottom of their tools page. http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/177. I'd love to see this done with some of the xbee units they sell, but doing it this way might be cheaper.