SapienIRCTL

Description

SapienIRCtl provides an IR control of robot devices that are normally controlled by hand-held remote control, such as RoboSapien V1, V2, or i-Sobot. It is a follow-up on a similar project where these robots can be controlled using LEGO serial IR tower, however, these devices are not produced anymore, and they are not very suitable, since the host PC must control the whole signal. In our case, the ATtiny45 receives the code to be send to the robot over USB line, and then generates the signal using two timers, one used for PWM and one used for the 1200Hz/1800Hz time-unit frequency interrupt. We used the low-cost 8-pin ATtiny45, which seems to be sufficient

This device is derived from AVRUSB project

Schematic diagram

Board

Partlist

Part     Value

R1,4       150R          
R2,3       68R            
R5         1k5 
R6         10R 
R7          1M  

C1,2       18pF 
C3        100n
C4         4u7 

D1,2       1N4004         
D3         LED Yellow
LED1,2     IR940          

IC1      ATTINY45       ATTINY45           SOIC8       
X1       12MHz          XTAL/S

T1       BC337-25       TO92        

socket     DIL8                                                                           
USB connector                                                                   
plastic box

Photos

Software

After the device is plugged to USB port for the first time, you need to tell Windows to use a specific driver that is located in the commandline/windows-driver subdirectory. Once the driver is installed, you can use the commandline utility sapienirctl.exe to emit the RoboSapien V1, RoboSapien V2, and i-Sobot codes.

You can download the last version of the release from CVS release directory, and check for the last CVS files in the CVS repository.

This device can in principle control wide range of remotely controllable devices - such as TV sets, HiFi, other remotely-controlled robots, etc.

Ordering

We have some spare devices that we can send you for the cost of parts that is about 15 EUR. Please let us know at ppetrovicacm.org.