Today's install was pretty good except for the strange behavior of the Audioplex 4056 Plasmaproof sensor.

It isn't plasmaproof.

I am attempting to use it with a Fujitsu 42". I am following the instructions in hooking it up to a Xantech 789-44, using all four outputs, going to Blink-IRs (I hate not being able to see when an LED is getting a signal).

When the plasma is on, all four LEDs blink anywhere from 10ish % of the time to almost constantly. I was on site from 2 p.m to 7 p.m. The plasma is on the south wall and there are uncovered east and north facing windows, so light gets in but not direct sunshine.

The Denon amp is controllable even though the LEDs blink. The Samsung SIR-TS160, though, worked some when I first turned everything on, then the system quit relaying the signals.

When the plasma is off, all works well except the device still does not relay the Samsung SIR-TS160 signals. This satellite receiver responds if I go into the room it is in with the remote, but not at all through the Audioplex sensor.

I have tried the sensor in lots of locations, but the LEDs in the other room never stop blinking, and it looks like satellite control is just plain gone.

I forgot to mention that when signals are sent through the system, the LEDs almost turn to flame, their light output is so high! Since the LEDs are SOOOOO bright, I tried lowering their brightness by putting a resistor (100 ohms, then 470 ohms) in series with the output of the 4056. I didn't actually run a signal through the 100 ohm resistor because it did not lower the ambient flickering of the LEDs very much. When I used the 470 ohm resistor, no signals reached the components at all!

It just occurred to me that if a Xantech Blink-IR can fail where the IR portion shorts (I mean this in the true technical sense) and leaves the visible LED working, that would explain why the satellite will not respond...

This message was edited by Ernie Bornn-Gilman on 07/10/03 03:55.

The problem is not the receiver but the receivers in your componants getting hit with plasma radiation. Isolate the IR to the componants and get rid of your broken emitters. Forget the resistor thing. Stick to the basics. Should work fine.

I don't know if I have any broken emitters because I can't, of course, see (with my eyes) any difference between the IR coming out of the satellite LED and the IR coming out of the Denon A/V receiver. I only know that a blink-IR where the visible portion works but the IR portion does not would have to have a shorted IR portion...and of course I have never heard of an LED or any kind of diode blowing by shorting; they always open.


The audio/video components are in a different room, so no plasma radiation is hitting them. The only thing that the plasma can affect is the Audioplex sensor and the CAT5 connected to it that takes the IR signal to the other room.

The CAT5 is connected properly for maximum noise reduction.


Matt at Audioplex tells me that they have a whole list of different problems that people have run into with the Blink-IR, and their second largest problem list is with IRs in series. He tells me to just use plain old invisible IRs, all in parallel, even using them without the Xantech 789-44 (but connected to the Audioplex yellow wire, which is for connecting a single LED directly to the sensor).

I'll keep you posted. I was off at another client's today.