On the MoBo of my new PC I have (amongst others) two headers:

IR (which presumably is for IRDA)
CIR

AIUI IRDA is for two way communication between smart devices and has a
properly structured open standard protocol stack.
CIR is for remote controls and has no standards as such (although the most
common proprietary protocols seem to be fairly well known) - it is just a
serial bit stream to pass key strokes from a remote control to a consumer
electronic device such as a TV or HiFi component.

Now I would like to use the PC as a Home Theatre component and use a remote
control.
However there is only one US company which seems to produce CIR
receiver/transmitters
http://shop.inteset.com/Products/5-i...herboards.aspx
and these are specifically for Intel MoBos - note that this is MoBos
produced by Intel, not just having an Intel chipset like my AsRock Z68
Extreme4 Series3.

This has a 7 pin connector and the AsRock only has 4 pins.
There is talk of adapting this at
http://shop.inteset.com/Boards/Topic.aspx?TopicID=75
but the apparent requirement to pick up an additional power pin from an
adjacent USB header and connect to the Vcc pin is puzzling me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_power_supply_pin suggest that Vcc is a
positive power supply pin. However there is already a +5V pin and the USB
power pin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB would also supply +5V.
The pin is labelled +5VSB (+ 5 V Standby) which suggests that it may have
something to do with switching in and out of standby but both AsRock
connectors only have this power and ground, plus RX and TZ, sp presumably
yhis is where the power comes from?
Again only 3 pins are used in the AVSForum solution below.

There is a supposed DIY solution described at
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...050640&page=45
which uses a photo diode from Farnell
http://uk.farnell.com/vishay/tsop123...khz/dp/4913050
which is no longer produced.
The pinout of the Front Panel CIR Receiver seems to match the pinout of the
Intest device but (although there is no connection to the Vcc pin) there are
additional components added presumably to fit the photo diode to the levels
required on the CIR connector.

Further confusion (at least to me) comes from the fact that the IR and CIR
headers seem to be very much the same on the AsRock board.

CIR IR
----- -----
+5VSB +5VSB
TX TX
RX RX
GND GND
Dummy

The CIR is a 4 pin single strip, and the IR is a 6 pin double strip with one
hole blanked.

In the AVSForum schematics for the CIR 7 pin connector there seems to be a
pin for RX (CIR input) but no connection to the LED pin for TX as specified
in the Inset thread, so I don't know if you would need two IR devices (such
as the discontinued Farnell component) to be able to transmit as well as
receive.

So all in all I seem to have two slightly conflicting sources (for example
the AVSForum device doesn't seem to need an extra power pin off the USB
header) with no eaxct match.

Potentially the best solution would be to get the Intest device and then map
the pins to the 4 pins on my MoBo if I can resolve the power issue.

In that case I assume that the neatest solution is to get a 4 pin Molex(?)
connector to fit the mother board 4 pins, and either rewire from the 7 pin
socket or get another 7 pin+blank plug and make up an adapter cable so I
don't have to hack the original part about.

Why am I going to all this trouble?
Well with an HTPC it is nice to be able to power up and power down via the
CIR, and also control it like an audio or video player from a remote control
instead of needing a keyboard and mouse at all times.
Also, because the headers are on there and I would like to try and use them.
I know the easy route would be to buy an external sensor and connect it to a
USB port but it would be nicer to integrate the IR into the case.

Cheers

Dave R

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

David WE Roberts wrote:
On the MoBo of my new PC I have (amongst others) two headers:

IR (which presumably is for IRDA)
CIR

AIUI IRDA is for two way communication between smart devices and has a
properly structured open standard protocol stack.
CIR is for remote controls and has no standards as such (although the
most common proprietary protocols seem to be fairly well known) - it is
just a serial bit stream to pass key strokes from a remote control to a
consumer electronic device such as a TV or HiFi component.

Now I would like to use the PC as a Home Theatre component and use a
remote control.
However there is only one US company which seems to produce CIR
receiver/transmitters
http://shop.inteset.com/Products/5-i...herboards.aspx

and these are specifically for Intel MoBos - note that this is MoBos
produced by Intel, not just having an Intel chipset like my AsRock Z68
Extreme4 Series3.

This has a 7 pin connector and the AsRock only has 4 pins.
There is talk of adapting this at
http://shop.inteset.com/Boards/Topic.aspx?TopicID=75
but the apparent requirement to pick up an additional power pin from an
adjacent USB header and connect to the Vcc pin is puzzling me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_power_supply_pin suggest that Vcc is a
positive power supply pin. However there is already a +5V pin and the
USB power pin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB would also supply +5V.
The pin is labelled +5VSB (+ 5 V Standby) which suggests that it may
have something to do with switching in and out of standby but both
AsRock connectors only have this power and ground, plus RX and TZ, sp
presumably yhis is where the power comes from?
Again only 3 pins are used in the AVSForum solution below.

Contrary to 5V,
5VSB is still available when the
computer is powered off(no.. in _standby_ ).
This is necessary if you want to use the circuit for powering up.

How this is done varies.
There may be solutions to use wake-on-lan headers on the mainboard,
or BIOS settings to wakeup when seeing serial input or PS/2 activity,
depending on what your mainboard uses for CIR.


There is a supposed DIY solution described at
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...050640&page=45
which uses a photo diode from Farnell
http://uk.farnell.com/vishay/tsop123...khz/dp/4913050

which is no longer produced.
The pinout of the Front Panel CIR Receiver seems to match the pinout of
the Intest device but (although there is no connection to the Vcc pin)
there are additional components added presumably to fit the photo diode
to the levels required on the CIR connector.

Further confusion (at least to me) comes from the fact that the IR and
CIR headers seem to be very much the same on the AsRock board.

CIR IR
----- -----
+5VSB +5VSB
TX TX
RX RX
GND GND
Dummy

There seems no real standard for those.
While your pinout looks just like an RS232 interface,
I have this old VIA EPIA-M User's manual here,
which says:

Consumer Infrared Module,
PS2 Header: CIR / EXT_KBMS
When the header is not in use, please short pin 3&5, pin 4&6, pin 7&9, and
pin 8&10.
Pin Signal Pin Signal
1 +5V 2 GND
3 KB_CLK 4 KB_DATA
5 EXT_KBCLK 6 EXT_KBDATA
7 MS_CLK 8 MS_DATA
9 EXT_MSCLK 10 EXT_MSDATA

This is essentialy pin headers for PS/2 Keyboard and mouse.
The backpanel connectors EXT_... get disconnected by pulling the
jumpers, and as a consequence cannot be used.

IMHO CIR just means: Whoever uses this has to invent something on
his own.

If you are into Microcontroller hacking, You could surely come up
with some circuit for your specific situation.

I once did that and it worked most of the time.

Should you really go down _that_ road, I can put some schematics and
source code on the net.(another DIY solution)

Hint: Besides soldering Iron, you will likely need a parallel port for
programming the chip.

Regards,
JK