99p remote controller.

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AndyGadget

Senior Member
If anyone in the UK has a '99p shop' near them, they're selling a Maxell 'iPod Remote Control and Receiver' for . . . 99p. Bound to be worth a punt I thought, but won't have a chance to open it up and explore until I get back off hols.

The controller is an inch and a bit by 4 inches with 4 push buttons arranged in a square, and a fifth in the middle. 5mm IR diode poking out the top.

Receiver is 1" x 2" with an IR receiver module visible through a window, and 3.5mm 4 pole jack and a couple of power pins to connect to the iPod.

I don't have an iPod but thought it may have potential for 'other uses', and at 99p . . .

Link to Amazon : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maxell-P-1-Player-control-infrared/dp/B0007XFGC2

Andy.
 
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Technical

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
This will only work for early ipods and ipod minis, no models from the last few years.

It wil output serial data signals via the square 'pcb pad' connector near the jack plug. There are 4 terminals on this square connector, V+, 0V serial in and serial out.
 
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AndyGadget

Senior Member
iPod use is of no interest to me - I haven't got one! I was thinking more of using the transmitter as-is and a bit-bashing PicAxe routine at the receiver end to read the output. Fine for 5 function remote control of (insert project name here).

99p Shop also did a version for 3rd and 4th gen iPods but I thought the basic one would have a simpler code structure.

(Do all iPods run off 3.7v?)
 
hippy

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
3.3V I thought

http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/Apple_iPod_jack#3rd_generation_iPod

With luck the remote will be 38kHz modulated so be able to use the TSOP18 IR receiver. Unlikely to be Sony IR format I'd have thought but perhaps bit-bangable. If it's a high-speed protocol could be difficult or impossible. One option may be to SERIN whatever it sends, HSERIN would be better. After all, you only need to discriminate between 5 buttons, not read the actual codes. A scope will be handy for seeing what it does put out.

The other option is to use the receiver unit and take RXD data and use that. Not a simple protocol AFAICS, but not overly complicated. More complicated if an odd baud rate or the PICAXE has to acknowledge data received. Probably has to be 3.3V supply.

That's 99p well spent for the hours of fun that can be had making it work.

The remote may be large enough to insert a PICAXE 08M and make it run INFRAOUT.
 
hippy

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
It's not clear if remote codes ( via serial ) do have to be responded to. If they do, it would be easy enough to store the correct response in Eeprom including checksum so don't have to do anything but spool them out.

I would guess the $FF $55 prefix for commands are auto-baud rate synchronisations. It should be possible to auto-calibrate HSERIN based on a PULSIN to measure the $FF. It would be reasonable to expect whatever's in the receiver to be using a standard baud rate. Unfortunately you have to deal with whatever baud rate the receiver puts out which seems likely to be higher rather than lower so that may exclude the smaller PICAXE's.
 
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