$4 DIY TV-B-Gone

A TV-B-Gone is a neat little device that can turn almost any TV on or off. It uses a microcontroller hooked up to IR LEDs to output a library of on/off codes. I wanted one but they retail for $20, and I thought I could make one. Adafruit sells akit, and has the code as well as the schematic on their website.

UPDATE! New version available with full building instructions! https://www.instructables.com/id/350-DIY-TV-B-Gone-Mico/

This is a simple TV-B-Gone made completely out of parts I had lying around. It has no circuit board, and all of the parts are just soldered together. I'll include some brief instructions because some people will want to make one themselves.

I have no external oscillator, but the internal one seems accurate enough and has worked on every TV I have tried. It may vary with extreme temperature conditions, though. I got the internal one to run Ladyada's code unmodified by turning off the fuse for the "divide by eight" clock option.

Materials:

• Attiny85v-10pu
• 8 pin IC socket; not required
• Filter capacitors; not required but I used them
• Small tactile button
• Visible LED and resistor; also not required
• 4 IR LEDS with 2 resistors, you could only use one if you didn't care about range.
• 2 AA battery holder

So if you are on a bare minimum budget, you could only use the microcontroller, switch, and one IR LED.

Tools:

• Soldering iron with solder
• Helping hands (recommended)
• Computer with programming software and an AVR programmer

You can look at the pictures to figure out how to solder it together, just make sure you put the code on the chip before hooking it up!

Mine has a pretty decent range considering that I used very low power signal LEDs, about 10 meters (33 feet) or so.

If anyone makes this, please send pictures! Comments, questions, and ratings are appreciated!