infared amplifier/splitter

If your Video Sender unit is the same as mine, it already has an output (mini phone jack) to do exactly as you wish. There are stick-on IR emitters available (google search...X10?) which glue over the IR receiving windows of the equipment to be controlled.

I don't have the specs on how many of these units the sender (receiver) will power, but it may be able to do exactly what you want 'out of the box'.

jak

I bought several of these from X10 last year, and they work. Look for a good price.

Actually the OP and I both said 'Video Sender' when we both (I assume) meant 'PowerMid', the infrared sender unit. Radio Shack carried them for a while as well. They are a pyramid-shaped (the name is a play on the shape--powermid/pyramid) plastic unit about 5" high.

I'd have to look up the newer Video Sender (2.4 gHz audio/video transmitter/receiver pair) units, if that's what he actually meant. ISTRC seeing that the newer units have infrared repeater capabilities. The older ones--which I have--did not.

jak

I was thinking of the Powermid, too. The IR emitter worked fine with it.

Are these IR emitters just an infared LED or is there a driver circuit built in to the emitter as well? I was thinking of just stealing some LED's out of junk remote transmitters. Lenny

Would probably work...might need a current limiting resistor.

jak

They appear to be just an LED. As there's only one jack for the emitter, it's assumed you'd be using only one emitter at a time, so the driver would "logically" be in the base unit.

Well actually if I employed an LED for each piece of equipment and paralleled them off the base unit then they would all try to fire at once when ever the IR sender system's receiver is hit with an RF signal from the remote. If the base unit driver is just set up to drive one LED then I would overload that transistor. (I'm assuming a small TO92 or some such thing as that). I was thinking that I might have to piggy back a TO220 on to it perhaps to handle the 5 or 6 LEDS in parallel. Lenny.

You could set up an external driver, of course. I'd suggest a separate transistor for each device -- the driver in the base unit shouldn't have any trouble driving five or six of them.

You don't _have_ to have a separate supplemental emitter for each device -- if you can position the emitter where all the devices can see it.

ny

That might be possible. I'll have to experimrent with the placement of that. I've also noticed something else somewhat related to this discussion. I have noticed that I can sit on the couch and aim the remote at the windows behind me. During daylight hours the signal will not reflect off the glass However at night I can bounce a signal off the glass and hit my equipment with it. I know that this is definitly a reflection because I can block the equipment's direct view with an open cabinet door and block line of sight. So it appears that the IR signal is "bouncing" off the glass only when its dark. If this is in fact whats happening then I'm wondering is it merely bouncing off the night time black glass or is it just bouncing off a black surface? Perhaps with the cabinet doors closed will the IR bounce whitin the dark cabinet and have a better chance of finding a target? Lenny.

I've also noticed something else somewhat related to this discussion. I have noticed that I can sit on the couch and aim the remote at the windows behind me. During daylight hours the signal will not reflect off the glass However at night I can bounce a signal off the glass and hit my equipment with it. I know that this is definitly a reflection because I can block the equipment's direct view with an open cabinet door and block line of sight. So it appears that the IR signal is "bouncing" off the glass only when its dark. If this is in fact whats happening then I'm wondering is it merely bouncing off the night time black glass or is it just bouncing off a black surface? Perhaps with the cabinet doors closed will the IR bounce whitin the dark cabinet and have a better chance of finding a target? Lenny.

The glass doesn't "know" whether it's light or dark outside, and the IR bounces just the same. My guess is that there's enough IR coming through the windows during the daytime to "swamp" the signal from the remote.

But your idea is interesting. The closed cabinet doors might indeed provide a reflector for the supplemental emitter. It's easy enough to experiment, so...

Many visibly black objects reflect IR, by the way.