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I've got a neighbor...

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HarveyH42

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This neighbor of mine has this weird and annoying habit of playing with remotes for TVs, stereos, well pretty much anything. Even if you see him coming, and hide the remotes, he'll eventually ask, 'where's the remote'. At his house, it's even worse, changes the channel every few minutes, volume up and down, switching between the stereo and TV...

So I got an fun idea, about recording the last remote button press, and sending it back out a few seconds later, or randomly. Thought it would be easy for a microcontroller, but got a hunch it would be sort of a memory hog, and really don't know enough if it's going to be fast enough to time and store the pulses. Got to thinking that maybe I don't need to really go that route, but need some help. I was thinking maybe I could use a voice recorder to capture the pulses, and just have to play them back through an IR LED. I don't know much about remotes, how important the very first pulse is, or how long I have to start the recording, once the IR receiver module detects it. Will probably use a microcontroller to handle switching between recording and playback, more timing options. Would be nice to just burn it all on one chip thought, so it could be a much smaller device, easier to conceal, and cheap enough to leave behind...

Haven't really dug into this idea much, mostly a few searches to see if it's already been done. Little lazy this week, cold and rainy, and overtime at work. Will looks more, and dig out a voice recorder to play with, to see if it can record and playback a remote signal manually in the first place. Figure the remote's carrier frequency is in the 38khz range, so might be a little too high to work directly. So many things I don't really know about, but just got a feeling it can be done.
 
Really interesting story, but who cares about his neighbor's behavior?

My neighbors play music for one week starting at midnight, ending in the early morning hours if one of their relatives has died.

So what?

Get along well with your neighbor and make friends.

How should we get peace on earth if even neighbors try to defeat each other?

Make love, not war or oops, make war not love?

Boncuk
 
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Really interesting story, but who cares about his neighbor's behavior?

My neighbors play music for one week starting at midnight, ending in the early morning hours if one of their relatives has died.

So what?

Get along well with your neighbor and make friends.

How should we get peace on earth if even neighbors try to defeat each other?

Make love, not war or oops, make war not love?

Boncuk

We get along fine, really not upset or angry, just thought it would be amusing. It's just unusual to pick up a remote every few minutes, any remote within reach. Maybe some nervous thing. Batteries must not last long in his house... He's got a pretty good sense of humor, least didn't get mad over some of my other pranks.

I did manage to find a couple of similar projects, which I might 'borrow' from...

LucidScience - Build the REMOTE HIJACKER - Page 1 of 13

Indrek's AVR interfacing project

There were a couple of PIC versions, which I should have save the links to, but I don't do PIC, and thought if I kept looking, I might find just what I was looking for with AVR. But it does seem that a microcontroller can handle the entire task. The Hijacker project, which mostly what I want to do, only automatic, uses a 28 pin chip, but I'd like to use an 8 pin device, since I really only need two I/O pins.
 
It would be more fun to build a fake remote with a high voltage, low amperage 'shocker' built in to it. Not stun gun/Taser amperage just a slight tingle. Then when shocked you say "I've been meaning to get that fixed"
 
Or something like. Capture an IR signal and decode it. There are kits for that. Then get one of those RF remote switches or an x-10 module. Put a siren behind the chair in a box. Pick a code like channel up and have him **** his pants when the siren goes off behind the chair he usually sits in when he pushes said button/buttons. Maybe make it mute. Have a time so it only goes off for 60 seconds or so.

A little harder. Just have the TV go off.

Or why not, have the gizmo kill power and then say "look what you did? You broke my TV"
 
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I do something similar with the volume control, channel jumping, and channel return...OCD.
 
Actually, I'm hoping to make this small and simple. Something I can leave behind, or quickly make copies (lots of neighbors, who might find it useful as well...), since he does this everywhere there's a remote. It's really a compulsive behavior, don't think he realizes just how often he uses the remotes. It's not that big a deal, and kind of amusing We are all okay with it, and expect it around here, but sometimes friends mention it, after seeing him in action the first time.

I was going to start out on an ATtiny85, which is an 8 pin device, with 8k, but couldn't remember where I put them. Usually keep the microcontrollers in the same drawer, but got them specifically for TV-B-gone, so left them with the other parts for those, only got around to building one. Might give the ATtiny13 a go, but 1k doesn't seem like a lot of space. Still kind of in an early stage, I don't know 'C', so the source code I've found isn't a huge help, though I can pick out a few things. Need to dig up the data sheets, and see if I've got two timers to work with, although could get by with just one, since I won't be recording a button press, when sending out. It would just be simpler to use the hardware as much as I can to save memory.

Anyone know if IR receiver modules will work off less than 5 volts? Don't have a part number or specs, I have about a dozen or so in a drawer, salvaged and surplus. The ones I used before, I ran off 5volts, which seemed to be the normal, also 38khz seemed about average carrier frequency, which also worked out. They seem to be very tolerant, and was thinking about battery power. The Attiny13 will run off 1.8-5.5 volts, and was hoping two AAA batteries would be enough.
 
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