TVBGone with it

The design is pretty simple : an AtTiny85, 6 TSAL 6100 IR diodes from Vishay (rated 1A for short pulses), 6+1 NPN transistors. Unlike what is show in the picture below, there is no more jumper (it was used to switch between programming mode and run mode). The tantalum capacitor has been scrounged, and not bought. If you know what coltan is, you know that buying tantalum stuff is rather bad.

TBGone bottom viewTVBGone with it

The thing is powered by 3xAA batteries. There is no current limiter, the only limit is provided by the batteries internal resistance so take care if you want to change supply for a LiPo or whatever, you’ll blow the LEDs for sure. In this case, add a resistor along each LED, or better, use some current regulator.

For now, the 6 TSAL LEDs are sucking 2.5 Amps without a current limiter.

TVBGone top view

The AVR code has been found on the net, and is provided here almost unmodified. The original authors are in the main.c header file, among which, of course, Limor (aka Ladyada).

I’ve changed the IR codes a bit, removing some duplicates, reordered them too so the most used codes comes first (file with modified codes is PERSOcodes.c).

One of the problems is that LG TV can not yet be turned off. This is a pain since LGs are everywhere. I don’t have time to reverse engineer timings for LG or use convert Lirc codes for now. But for sure, this would be valuable work. If you do it, please drop me a note.

EDIT : CaitSith2 dropped a note saying he has more up to date code for TVBG which turns off LGs too (see comments). So you’d better use his code than mine. Thanks CaitSith2 !

EDIT2 : It seems that CaitSith2 is more high power : 8 TSAL6100, 4xAA… nice !

In the schematics (tvbgone2_cms), all the little pads near JP1 are for a very weird slide button (I was too leazy to draw an eagle lib part). So don’t panic and adjust for your switch.

There is another schematic included : tvbgone_mini.sch, which is a variant intended to be build as jewelry. I plan to use CR2477 batteries but I never built it. If you make it, please tell me how things turned.

The P & R pins are « Program » and « Run » respectively. When done programming, just cut the wire going from the central pad to P, and make a solder bridge between the central pad and the R pad. If you need to reprogram again, remove bridge, and bridge between the central pad and P, etc…

Get the eagle schematics, grab the code, turn off those TVs and have fun.

After chasing the idea of building a remote for my D50, I found this really interesting page with all you need (especially the IR timing) to get your remote up and running.

But using a AtTiny2313 for this leaves a lot of room to play with. So I made an enhanced version with a 7-segments display and a menu system. The new firmware let’s you choose among several shooting modes.

The remote is almost identical to the BigMike’s one except :

• the firmware is, of course, modified
• there is no On/Off button
• there are two buttons for the menu (change/select)
• there is a 7-segments display for the menu

Remote control

The firmware sets the Tiny2313 in sleep mode after 5 seconds of inactivity.
In tis mode, the datasheet gives at most 2µA current usage. So, since a CR2032 yields 220 mAh, and if I didn’t mess up somehere, you should be up and running for 10 years.

Modes description

The remote offers 9 shot modes, which of course can be changed in the firmware.

Whatever the mode, the dp dot blinks everytime a « take shot » IR frame is sent.

• Single shot mode (symbol : reversed lower ‘c’) : one button press makes a single shot

• Double shot mode (symbol : two horizontal dashes ) : one button press makes two shots in a row

• Triple shot mode (symbol : three horizontal dashes ) : one button press makes three shots in a row

• Continuous shot (symbol : lower ‘c’) : one button press starts continuous shooting as fast as possible until the ‘menu’ button is pressed again or the battery is dead

• Continuous shot every second (symbol : number 1) : one button press starts shooting 1 picture per second until the ‘menu’ button is pressed again or the battery is dead

Numbers 2, 5, 0 and 6 are also continuous shoot mode with 1 picture every 2, 5 10 and 60 seconds respectively.

Modes selection

Files

Wanna build yours ? You’ll need :

Circuit schematic

Circuit board layout

The core of the code (IR timing loop) is taken straight from BigMike’s ASM source.

Issues

There are some issues in my version. I am not sure if they are firmware/hardware/ir issues. The problem is the reliability of triggering : sometimes it just doesn’t work. This does make the remote of reduced usability for continuous shooting modes where timing is critical.

I wonder where this problem comes from : IR receptor low sensitivity ? inaccurate frequency generation ? AF mode induced triggering problems in some situations ?
Since I have relatively few hardware here (no friend with another D50, no oscilloscope, …) I didn’t dig it up for now.

And oh, BTW, the usual warnings apply : this remote can brick your MCU, destroy your Nikon, set your house on fire, etc… You’ve been warned !

Thanks

Big thanks to Bighignoli Michele, Jonas Diemer and Nate who pioneered the area.

EDIT : I finally managed to put my hands back on the firmware ! You can grab the ASM source or the hex file. Have fun !