Hello everone im new here and this is my first post so just introducing myself, i guess. i need help building a remote, heres kinda whats going on. my uncle set me on a task to find a long range infared remote control, what he wants is to be able to control his neighbors television from his deck. however the TV is about 75-100 meters away and i have no idea how to go about doing this if anyone could give me any ideas or well pretty much any info it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Use a LOT of IR leds... more leds more light. The driving circutry of a normal remote can't drive that many LED's so you'd have to make your own driver. A power transistor (capaable of 2-4 amps) will drive a 10X10 array of 20ma's LED's though you have to put current ballancing resistors on the LED's. Look up LED array. Infrared LED's are exactly the same as normal visable LED's, they just seem more mysterious because you can't see the light they produce.

 

Why not make a project that is more useful?

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Uncle $crooge

 

What's more useful than screwing with a neighboors TV? =)

 

That is a job for little kids, isn't it? This guy and his uncle should grow up.

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Uncle $crooge

 

2-4 amps. Get real. Battery replacement week and bigger than the remote. Do you have his TV code/type? Write it down, you will need to re-enter it every week as well.

Or maybe a bad back draging the battery around the deck all day.

Don't forget a focal lens.

 

This is obviously a bad idea, but I'd get a telescope(for aiming) and an IR laser(out of a CD player) and go that route. Stick an IR sensor in the telescope, and use some retro-reflective tape to align it, then point it directly at the TV's IR sensor. Then prepare some cookies for the SWAT team and get ready for some lawsuits, cause that's where this is heading...

 

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/755e/

That works 20-50 feet on a single LED... Okay, if you don't want to go overkill with the 10x10 array, how about just 5 total? That's just 100 ma's and that's continous (for those completly oblivious remote controls are pulsed) All you have to do for that is feed the single LED's signal into the transistor connected to the array. Should take 10-15 minutes tops to put together.

 

Yeah hjames.. The IR police are going to come for him <smirk>

 

I think the telescope and laser dot might get the SWAT team here. Not the IR that no one can see.

Also, I hope the guy they are messing with does not see the laser or scope from his window and have a gun.. This might not be so fun..

I would just let HIM (assuming a him) watch HIS TV HE pays for. And I would go inside and watch mine.

Or maybe you have no TV and the reason for the high powered remote?

 

100M = ~300 feet = ~10x the distance, which will need 100x the power. Inverse squared is a real kicker. 100 LEDs would be a good start, not to mention the losses you get from windows/atmosphere. Focusing optics would obviously reduce this number.

That ThinkGeek link would be a good starting point though.

 

just remember, if the guy has any kind of video camera or digicam or webcam pointed at your uncle's house when he's using it, they are going to know.

I wonder what the law says about this sort of thing?

 

All you would need is a normal remote control, and some good optics to focus it in to a tight beam - and accurate alignment of course.

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i've seen this idea before... simple, cheap, effective.
http://imakeprojects.com/projects/tvsniper/

 

I think the main problem is; how is Flyingmunkie going to get them to turn the TV towards the gismo he is planning to make?