Bizarre TV project/question

snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.net ha escrito:

it shouldnt be. it is as complicated or as simple as you choose to make it. start with the simple first- just get a length of the screened cable mentioned earlier ( to avoid the risk of parasitic interference on your ir line), and solder your ir detector to one end and the other to the tv chassis pcb. worry about all the other stuff like optical solutions later, IF that doesnt work! good luck and post your results please! ;-) B.

It is really not that difficult, what is critical is:

1) The TV "might" have a hot chassis, so be careful nothing you extend outside the game cabinet has any continuity to either of the tabs on the AC power cord. Check with an ohmmeter for "leakage" using the megohm scale. This includes any mounting screws from your brackets which penetrate the exterior of the game cabinet.

2) The IR sensor is a sensitive circuit, once you locate the active terminals versus the ground terminal (case) of the IR sensor module, use shielded cable for the active and the shield for the ground return. Route this wire away from the high voltage and CRT. Remember to replace the red IR filter over the module when you install it.

3) As an >well.........I really didn't think it would be this involved. I just

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money"  ;-P

I don't feel much further along on this than when I first posted. I think that I'll pick up some mic cable on tuesday and just give it a go. I was a good life!

[IMG]

if you guys are able to open these pictures, maybe they can help?

That's a shame. I think it's all getting over complicated now. As a couple of us said at the top of the thread, what you are trying to do is quite straightforward, and if you keep the infra red receiver tucked away in your console, represents no danger. There is no danger whatsoever in doing the job either, as long as you make sure that the TV chassis is completely disconnected from the wall supply when you do the job.

Get your mic cable from Radio Shack. It is called single screen twin. That just means that it is a twin cable ie two seperate insulated wires, surrounded by a woven wire shield or screen, the whole lot then being encased in a round plastic jacket. The idea of the screen is that being grounded, it forms an electrostatic shield around the two internal wires, and protects them from interference pickup. There are a lot of high intensity electromagnetic and electric fields in a TV receiver, and just extending the IR receiver with open wires, could result in erratic operation. It might not. But likely would.

To prepare the ends of the cable, strip off a half inch of the outer plastic sheath. This will reveal a copper or silver coloured multiwire shield - probably a bit like TV coax. Unwrap or unplait this braid, then twist it into a pigtail. Strip an eighth inch from the ends of the two internal wires ( probably one red and one white ). You now have the three wires that you need to connect to the IR receiver's three pins and the three vacated print pads.

You now need to determine which of the three pins is the ground connection. Looking from the front, it's usually the right pin, but not always. If the module has a pair of metal wings soldered into the board at either side, like you say, they may well be grounded, so look for which pin connects to the same piece of print. Failing this, you'll have to use an ohm meter to check for a zero reading to something like the tuner can, as someone else suggested.

Once you've found the ground pin, connect this one to the pigtailed screen wire. You can slip a bit of sleeving over the pigtail before you solder it if you like, to make it a bit more like a 'real' wire. Solder the pigtail at the other end, to the corresponding place on the board, where that pin came from. Now solder the other two wires to the other two pins. Doesn't matter which to which, so long as they correspond correctly back at the board end.

As far as making a new IR window goes, you can buy IR sheet plastic, but it's quite expensive. Best place to get a new window is off the front of an old remote control. If you haven't got one laying around the house, your local friendly TV repair shop will have them coming out their ears.

Hope that helps to get it all back into perspective, and helps you to actually carry out the job. It's easy for those of us who do the work professionally, to forget that hobbyists need terms and such explained in detail, so sorry if we've confused you, and put you off your little project ... Stick with it and you'll get there in the end d;~}

Arfa

Arfa, finally someone that understands my madness! I have renewed hope now in this project! Now all I have to do is determine the ground pin. You explained it quite well by the way. I'll keep you all posted on my progress. Hopefully by tuesday I will have the results that I'm looking for. Thanks again.

uhm... you need only three wires.. no special cables, no optical fiber ecc ecc

IR remote sensors are amazingly unreliable when they're not properly shielded and given dirty power. They contain a very high (and variable) gain amplifier that goes nuts if there is any inductance on the leads. Like Arfa said, it -might- work if you just use wires, but if I was going through the trouble, I would do it right the first time.

Can you run a piece of lucite or fiber optic cable from a small hole in the cabinet to the remote sensor? That might be the easiest solution.

snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.net wrote: My question is if it is possible

OK guys, bare with me. Went to radio shack today and purchased what turns out to be the wrong cable for this project. I'm bummed. I ended up buying shielded microphone extension cable for about $7 and came home ready to dive in and when I cut the top off of the cable I found that it has an outer shielding and a single wire on the inside (not two wires like I expected!) I'll try again tomorrow for a different cable. Hope I don't make another mistake like that one. This could get costly quick.

Arfa, is this a suitable choice of cable from radio shack???

Go the distance. Flexible and durable, this 2-conductor, shielded cable can be used as an extension cable for microphone connections.

Can be used with most professional quality microphones Shielding reduces hum & noise

1 end has a 3-pin XLR jack, the other a 3-pin XLR plug

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Microphone cable

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15-Ft. XLR-to-XLR Microphone Cable

$21.99 Model: 33-4002 Catalog #: 33-4002

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Reformatting the link by dropping the tag preceding the "http" and those following the "jpg" would have made it look like this.

I'm still curious as to if you had given any thought to using mirrors instead of re-wiring the module.

Good idea.

An XLR wired microphone cable is balanced, so yes, this is the correct cable. However, do Radio Shack no longer sell cut cable from the reel over there ? Would be cheaper, I guess, as the XLR connectors that are prewired to this extension cable, are not cheap items, belonging as they do to the " professional " series.

Arfa

I just don't know where else I can get something like this locally. I'll just bite the bullet and get it there I guess.

Just wanted to let everyone that helped me out with their input that I was successful in wiring up the remote sensor! I used the shielded twin cable the Arfa suggested and it worked perfectly...and I didn't even get zapped, which was a big plus! I'll post a snapshot of where my project is currently for anyone interested in where my madness was going. Thanks again to everyone that responded.

Really glad that it all worked out ok. There's nothing worse than seeing a hopeful non professional just get shot down on here, when they ask a reasonable question. Well done, and I'm sure we'd all be interested in seing pictures of the project.

Arfa

Thanks again Arfa. I agree. I've posted on other google groups and have always recieved great help. I'll post the pics when I get most of this back together and it really looks like something. I'm just starting to assemble it today so sometime this week make sure you check back. Rich

Will do

Arfa