Hi folks,
About a month ago, I asked about aligning these little Multicode remotes that give a squirt of 300MHz RF when you press the button. Solution found. I bought a second gate control receiver for $29.95 plus shipping. Fixed 10 of those puppies yesterday morning.
The receiver board had a couple of clearly marked test points: "GND" and "DATA". Doing the obvious thing with my scope, I was presented with a pulse stream that I could easiliy peak with the tuning cap of the remote.
Strangely enough, only three of them were out of tune. The rest had other problems, such as cracked solder joints. A couple had bad on/off switches. And a couple were just clogged with dirt. The out of tune ones were WAY out of tune, as if somebody had messed with them.
The test setup showed clearly if the remote was oscillating, and also whether there was a data stream. I could read the switch positions right off the pulse train - ON switches had short pulses, and OFF switches had long ones.
Each remote had a pot for adjusting the pulse width. Strangely, it made no difference in performance or sensitivity wherever I adjusted it. You'd think Multicode would have figured that out and just stuck in a resistor :). After all, this is a VERY cost sensitive application.
- Jerry Kaidor ( jerry@tr Ihatespam 2.com )