HouseBot

Hi All -



Is it possible to hook up the USB IRT product to a network jack (e.g. a USB to Ethernet adapter) so that I can hook up the USB IRT transmitter/receiver in different part of the house?



I have network jacks in various rooms but I don't have the Housebot server in the same room where I'd like to control the IR devices. I was wondering if I could control IR devices using Housebot with USB IRT plugged into a network jack (or something equivalent) so I don't have to try to run a really long USB cable run.

This might be what you are looking for



http://www.globalcache.com/products/gc-index.html

You can 'hack' the USB-UIRT and add external wired receivers and emitters.

I got instructions from Jon and did it with success.

WARNING - If you don't do it properly, you may damage the unit!

yaccri wrote:You can 'hack' the USB-UIRT and add external wired receivers and emitters.
I got instructions from Jon and did it with success.
WARNING - If you don't do it properly, you may damage the unit!

I would love to do this, can you post the instructions?

It takes some soldering skills to do it.



Open the unit (unscrew the 3 screws).

You'll notice the receiver led in the middle of the front area. It is the led with the metal cover and an X shape metal in the front. Next to it you'll see the 2 emitters.



Emitter displacement:

-------------------------

If you only need short range emitters, buy regular or stick-on emitters and connect them to the jack at the back of the unit. This is fairly simple and yo can find instructions at the USB-UIRT forum.



If you want to use the powerful emitters the the unit has, do the following:

Take a close look at the emitters. They are direcerional - one leg is the Anode, and the other is the Cathode. One of them has a 'notch'. Look through the transparent cover and Before un-soldering, make a note of the connection. They are connected in series.



Unsolder the two emitters. solder a paired wire to the USB-UIRT - one wire to one end of the location of the two emitters, and the other to the other end. On the other end of the wire, solder the emitters in the correct direction.



USB-UIRT -------------- /\ --|

|

|

USB-UIRT -------------- /\ --|







I use an 1/8" mono jack so I can easily disconnect the emitters.





Receiver

-----------

I connected receivers in paralel with the USB-UIRT receiver, but I believe that you can just remove the receiver from the board and connect it with a wire. You should use a shielded one-pair wire. the shield is connected to the middle leg, and the 2 wires to the sides (again, the direction is important). The metal shield of the receiver must be soldered to the middle leg.



Good luck.

sa854 -



Thanks for the link on the Ethernet based USB box. It does look like something I could use, but the big question is how would HB work with it? AFAIK, there is no plugin for HB to integrate with these modules and it would be something I would have to develop on my own (or Meedio writes one -cough- Meedio Essientials Plugin -cough-).



Anyway, I know that USB IRT is already a plugin for HB, I'd like to see it extended across a network. The suggestion to expand USB-IRT by hacking it to put in additional IR receiver/emitters is not something that I was looking for. One still has to route the wiring, and there is only so much distance you can put in a wire before resistive losses and noise creeps into the system.



Here is something I came across the net while researching this topic.



http://www.bb-elec.com/product.asp?SKU=ANYWHEREUSB/5



It looks like to be a pure Ethernet to USB box so I can, concievably, put any USB device on this and have it work over the network. In theory, HB should be able to talk to the USB IRT as if it were in the same PC. In practice, this really depends on how well the drivers were written to support this product. I was wondering if anyone here has tried something like this (not necessarily with USB-IRT but with something else) and how it well it worked (or didn't work).



Also, it is pricey at $263 per unit. A bit steep for tinkering.

I don't use the device myself. Only reason why I know about it is because Netremote supports it (I use netremote occasionally to control Meedio and BTV).

I just wanted to post an update to my USB-IRT experiences thus far...



I purchased an USB-IRT and an Cat-5 USB extender (which can be found at this link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812101152)



Anyway, my house is wired with Cat-5e jacks so I plugged one end of the USB extender into the wiring closet which is also where the Housebot server is. On the other end, I plugged in a USB self-powered hub - because it's not a good idea to try to draw DC power over long distances due to resistive losses. I plugged in the USB-IRT into the hub and it receives its DC power from the hub. The device worked - HouseBot can interact with it just fine - it does what it's supposed to do.



But, alas, it works only for a short while (hours). After a random period of time, the PC (HB server) can no longer see the USB-IRT device. It disappears from the list of USB devices in hardware manager). To get it working again, it is necessary to unplug it and plug it back in. I checked the USB-IRT forums and it sounds as if this is a common problem because the USB-IRT designer, John Rhees, always asks if it was on an extender cable. Sooooooo... I think I'm on the right track, but there needs to be a better way to extend the USB connection. I thought the USB extenders that I bought for Cat 5 were active extenders (i.e. included additional electronics to improve signal quality) but I think they're just passive and map the USB signals one-to-one to a wire in the Cat-5 cable.



As far as I know, USB is a 4 wire protocol. Power, ground, and two data signals (a plus and a minus - the data signals would be differential). USB appears to be designed as a half duplex protocol (e.g. the endpoints take turns transmitting its data over the link). I would have thought the differential signal would have had better noise immunity but there is something marginal about my extended USB link that causes the USB-IRT device to shut down.



Anyway, anyone have any suggestions? I did try to put two USB hubs at the endpoints but that didn't work. Is USB-IRT the ONLY IR device that HB supports? Is there another IR product that I can consider and would work at a distance?



I still think wiring the individual emitters and the receivers in the USB-IRT device is a BAD idea for long wire hauls. For a short distance, it will work, but long distances will definitely kill the signal due to it being single ended (just a signal and ground).