I am new to the pickaxe world. I got in to it because my wife was making Roman shades for the house. (It has been cold in Maine and fuel costs are high. She said that it would be cool if she could make shades that either open from the top or the bottom. Agoogeling I wet and came across the instructable for automating your own blinds for $15. I was jazzed at the concept and ordered the parts and started my research. I could have built the exact opener but the thought of incorporating an IR sensor seemed really cool. So with the research that I have done I came up with questions. . I cut a three leg IR receiver out of a Sony boom box so hopefully that will work I would like to have a single momentary contact switch work an IR sender
Q#1 can it be any sender or Sony compatible(I do not like the idea of using a Sony remote or universal remote because ideally I want to make the sender vary small I was thinking of putting the sender in a salt shaker like the cheep ones @ dinners and drilling the glass for the button to poke through and setting the sender in the cap.) The first blind that I am going to automate is in the kitchen..
Q#2 from what I have read it seems that the Picaxe will lock up till it gets another IR signal? I was thinking that if I could have the input of the IR =1 then time out to 0 then in the main program if pin 4 =1 and b3=1 than goto close, if pin4 =1 and b3=2than goto open.
Q#3Can I deconstruct a Sony remote for simple one button operation?
Q#4 can I have pin 4 = 1 or 2 ?
Q#5 I have a phono to 9pin cable that came with the starter pack. I need to go one more step and go to USB (I know that I could buy a dongle for it but it would be cheaper to cut two cables and splice them together. I saw in the posts that buying an older laptop is also a solution because it seems that dongles don’t always work)
Q#6 can I just bypass 9 pin and go to the USB and would I need some computer manipulation to get it to download?
Q#7 Hack? Did I hack apart the boom box to get to the IR sensor? Will I be hacking together a phono to USB cable? Will I be hacking together a blind opener? Will I be hacking the computer to get the cable to work? Am I a hack? (figured I should know if some one calls me one) I don’t know. Any help would be appreciated.
Q#1 can it be any sender or Sony compatible(I do not like the idea of using a Sony remote or universal remote because ideally I want to make the sender vary small I was thinking of putting the sender in a salt shaker like the cheep ones @ dinners and drilling the glass for the button to poke through and setting the sender in the cap.) The first blind that I am going to automate is in the kitchen..
Q#2 from what I have read it seems that the Picaxe will lock up till it gets another IR signal? I was thinking that if I could have the input of the IR =1 then time out to 0 then in the main program if pin 4 =1 and b3=1 than goto close, if pin4 =1 and b3=2than goto open.
Q#3Can I deconstruct a Sony remote for simple one button operation?
Q#4 can I have pin 4 = 1 or 2 ?
Q#5 I have a phono to 9pin cable that came with the starter pack. I need to go one more step and go to USB (I know that I could buy a dongle for it but it would be cheaper to cut two cables and splice them together. I saw in the posts that buying an older laptop is also a solution because it seems that dongles don’t always work)
Q#6 can I just bypass 9 pin and go to the USB and would I need some computer manipulation to get it to download?
Q#7 Hack? Did I hack apart the boom box to get to the IR sensor? Will I be hacking together a phono to USB cable? Will I be hacking together a blind opener? Will I be hacking the computer to get the cable to work? Am I a hack? (figured I should know if some one calls me one) I don’t know. Any help would be appreciated.
Last edited:
