ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
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Hello,
I am looking at building a custom IR blaster cable to control Plex on a Raspberry Pi. Today, I simply tape he IR emitter and receiver together, but this is not very elegant ...
I would like to know if the IR jack is a standard type of 3.5mm 3-pole jack (and which one).
My plan is to build a male/male or male/female cable plus a short cable that would connect to the gpio data pin on one end and a male or female 3.5mm on the other.
It seems simple to send the data from the rpi directly to the tv, but maybe i'm missing something. all comments welcome !
- scott
BeoNut since '75
thanks !
so it looks like a 2-pole 3.5mm. i'm assuming one is data, anyone know what the other is ? thanks in advance !
Ground.
Usually tip is signal (data), sleeve is ground for IR transmitter.
IR receiver (like the Vishay TSOP7000) usually use three pins (tip - ring - sleeve) as they need additional 5 volts.
Hope this helps.
Stefan
hello,
i'm really curious about this connector, if it has only ground and data how does it power the emitter ?
i am currently using a 3-pin receiver and thought that the ir-blaster cable would require this as well.
Hi,
this IR Blaster works fine with just two pins: One is ground and the other one (the tip) is the output for driving the IR LED.
This might give some problems for the use with a Raspberry PI: The GPIO pins of a Raspberry PI are voltage driven and accept only 3,3 Volt. maximum, whereas the output of the STB Controller or PUC is probably driven by a constant current source.
You should connect the IR cable with an interface to protect your Raspberry:
tip of cable > ---- Resistor--------+------------- GPIO Pin of your Raspberry PI
Ground of cable -------------------------------------- GND of Raspberry PI
at the + connect a Zener Diode with 2.7 Volt (cathode, marked with a small coloured ring) and anode of the Zener to the common ground of the Ir Blaster cable and Ground connection of the Raspberry PI.
The resistor should be 120 or 150 Ohms ( 1/3 Watt ).
This should work, but is not tested
The function is as follows:
If the STB / PUC activates the IR LED a current flows through the resistor and the Zener Diode if the voltage is higher than ~ 3,3 Volt. at the Zener Diode you will get about 2.7 Volts then which are enough to be recognized as a logical '1' by the Raspberry PI, but still on the save side for the GPIO pin.
Ralph-Marcus
I would use an opto-coupler. keep both separated.