I'm building a small hobby project using a PIC. It's going to to use either an 18F2550 or an 18F14K50, I'm still working out if I can fit my project into the smaller one.
Now my project need several input switches for people to control it. But it occurs to me that rather than doing that I could use an IR remote control to control it. It would save pins on the PIC and also quite a bit of mechanical construction which isn't my strong point, as well as being more convient to use the finished device.
So my question is what hardware do I need to receive IR remote control signals on a PIC? And if I buy a really cheap "replacement" tv remote control from the local supermarket am I likely to be able to use it with such a project? I'm interested in basically what is the cheapest and easiest way to do this that will be reliable.
Most of my experience is with software so I'm not too worried about making it work if I can physically receive the signals and have some documentation on what to expect, but I'm really not too sure what I'd need in the way of hardware, and what kind of interface I can expect.
I tried to google, but got so many hits on useless pages and random designs that connected to PC parallel ports and so on that I ended up gaining little useful information.
Now my project need several input switches for people to control it. But it occurs to me that rather than doing that I could use an IR remote control to control it. It would save pins on the PIC and also quite a bit of mechanical construction which isn't my strong point, as well as being more convient to use the finished device.
So my question is what hardware do I need to receive IR remote control signals on a PIC? And if I buy a really cheap "replacement" tv remote control from the local supermarket am I likely to be able to use it with such a project? I'm interested in basically what is the cheapest and easiest way to do this that will be reliable.
Most of my experience is with software so I'm not too worried about making it work if I can physically receive the signals and have some documentation on what to expect, but I'm really not too sure what I'd need in the way of hardware, and what kind of interface I can expect.
I tried to google, but got so many hits on useless pages and random designs that connected to PC parallel ports and so on that I ended up gaining little useful information.