Pi_Remote_IR

Pi_Remote_IR is a python script that allows a raspberry pi to be controlled via a IR-Remote. Whenn a specific button is pressed on the Remote (like button 0) the corresponging led will turn on and the name of the pressed button will be displayed on an OLED screen.

Team members: Simon Friedrichs, Aaron Zettler

Schematic

How to install

To use this python script you have to configure your raspberry pi as followes. We used a raspberry pi 3 with "2019-04-08-raspbian-stretch" but this should work for other setups as well.

• connect to the pi via ssh, this is optional

  ssh pi@<ip adress of your pi>

• install git if not installed

  sudo apt install git

• enable I2C: open the raspberry pi config with the command below, open (Interfacing Options) -> (I2C) and press (Enter). Then reboot.

  sudo raspi-config
  sudo reboot

• clone this project to your raspberry pi with

  git clone https://github.com/AaronZettler/Pi_Remote_IR.git

How to use

The following stepps are required to start the python script.

• cd to the git repository with

  cd <your setup path>\Pi_Remote_IR

• start the python script

  python Pi_Remote_IR.py

Special thanks to Owain

Without Owains IR-Remote-Receiver-Python-Module none of this would be possible. We almost gave up when we were using lirc but thanks to Owain we finally were able to receive the right "codes" from our IR-Remote.

Links and references

https://github.com/owainm713/IR-Remote-Receiver-Python-Module https://indibit.de/raspberry-pi-oled-display-128x64-mit-python-ansteuern-i2c/ https://raspi.tv/2013/rpi-gpio-basics-5-setting-up-and-using-outputs-with-rpi-gpio

Things that didn't work

First we used lirc (lirc_tutorial_1, lirc_tutorial_2) to receve IR siginals. After hours of problem solving we droped lric and found a better method. We will not describe this process in deteil because it didn't work but below are some of the things we tried. At this point we were using a raspberry pi 4 with "2019-09-26-raspbian-buster".

• we installed lirc like described in the DIDNT_WORK.txt file of this repository.
• we were receving data but we were not abele to generate a "propper" configuration file. We used this command to generate the configuration file.

  irrecord -d /dev/lirc0 ~/lircd.conf

• because our configuration file looked like this, we tried useing a raspberry pi 3 with "2019-04-08-raspbian-stretch".
• at this point we were able to capture a "working" config file but we didnt receve any data when useing the following command.

  irw

• after further analysis we found out that lirc was receving different "codes" when pressing the same button on the remote. Below you can see the config file that was generated by pressing the same button for different KEYs.

  # Pi_Remote_IR
  Controls Raspberry-Pi-GPIO(LEDs) via IR-Remote.
  
  # Please take the time to finish this file as described in
  # https://sourceforge.net/p/lirc-remotes/wiki/Checklist/
  # and make it available to others by sending it to
  # <lirc@bartelmus.de>
  #
  # This config file was automatically generated
  # using lirc-0.9.4c(devinput) on Wed Jan 22 21:18:09 2020
  # Command line used: -d /dev/lirc0 /home/pi/lircd.conf
  # Kernel version (uname -r): 4.19.66-v7+
  #
  # Remote name (as of config file): SONY
  # Brand of remote device, the thing you hold in your hand:
  # Remote device model nr:
  # Remote device info url:
  # Does remote device has a bundled capture device e. g., a
  #     usb dongle? :
  # For bundled USB devices: usb vendor id, product id
  #     and device string (use dmesg or lsusb):
  # Type of device controlled
  #     (TV, VCR, Audio, DVD, Satellite, Cable, HTPC, ...) :
  # Device(s) controlled by this remote:
  
  begin remote
  
    name  SONY
    driver devinput
    bits           56
    eps            30
    aeps          100
  
    one             0     0
    zero            0     0
    pre_data_bits   72
    pre_data       0x9
    gap          19854
    toggle_bit_mask 0x0
    frequency    38000
  
        begin codes
            BTN_0                    0x4A010000000264
            BTN_1                    0x2101000000027D
            BTN_2                    0x3301000000027D
        end codes
  
  end remote