Electronics
Hobbyist
Project:
Goal:
To create something that will be used on a daily
basis.
Purpose:
This project controls a fan from an infrared
universal remote. (The couch potato's dream
machine) One of
my
goals for this project was for a microcontroller to be running my code
24 hours
a day, 7 days a week. Knowing that creates a great deal of
hobbyist
satisfaction.
The
front panel contains an IR modulated receiver, a red T1 and
3/4 LED, and a manual start and stop button.
To
program a RCA universal remote, I follow the following
procedure: Hold down on the DVD button, type in 2062 on the
keypad, and
let go of the DVD button. When the universal remote is setup
properly,
pressing a "1" on the remote will turn the fan on for one hour (the
front panel LED will blink once), pressing a "2" on the remote will
turn the fan on for two hours (the front panel LED will blink twice),
etc. Oh, pressing the power button on the remote will turn on
the
fan
indefinitely and pressing the power button again will turn the fan off.
Figure
1: This is an overall view of the system; the red rectangle
in
the lower
left of the screen is a 6-inch ruler.
The
processor is an AT90S2313 from Atmel.
It has 2K bytes of in system programmable flash, 128 bytes of SRAM and
128
bytes of EEPROM. The processor is running at 4 MHz in this
project.
The front panel lexan text was created in AutoCAD 97 light.
The
CAD file
was then printed out on stick backed paper and then
laminated.
After
being cut to the size of the enclosures front panel, the wax paper was
taken
off the back. A piece of developed film was applied to the
hole
where the
IR receiver fits to act as an IR filter. The
whole
laminated-paper-developed film sandwich was then stuck to the sheet
metal on
the front of the project box.
The circuit board seen in Figure 2 was salvaged from a different
project and
modified to work with this project. The 120VAC Transformer
was
salvaged
from a clock radio. The Bridge Rectifier, fuse holder,
switch,
and LED
all began life in different appliances. (The fuse holder came
from a
fence charger, I bet my uncles cows are happy about that!)
Figure
2: The lid is off of the project. The major
portions of the
system
are labeled.
Summary:
This
project has been in use for about a year and a half now. An
earlier
version of the software would sometimes randomly turn off the
fan. The
bug was found and software was updated. The current revision
of
the
software is 1.4. The
software is
commented, so I’ll leave it to you to figure that out.
Here
is all of the Fun stuff:
Schematic:
Remote
Control Fan Schematic (in PDF format)
Source
Code: Remote
Control Fan Source Code (written in Atmel assembly language)
Burn
File: Remote
Control Fan Burn File (in Intel HEX format)
Please
let me know
if you are building the project. I’d
be
happy to answer any questions or comments you have.
My email is matt6feet9@yahoo.com
(remove the “ee”’s
from the userid.
As
always, use
this code, schematic and information at your own risk.
I assume no responsibility for its use.
Keep
in mind that this project deals with
120V line power, if not handled properly, line voltage can cause injury
or
death.
Author:
Matt Meerian
Last Modified: January
25, 2010
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