install crew,

What is the Ir Voltage that you guys use the most. I work for a fiber balun company called Inneos and we want to make sure we understand your needs. If we have a 5V IR could you make it work on a 9V system?

If RS232 comes with bare wires is that acceptable.

thanks for your feedback

Mike Gleason

5V is common with Savant and Crestron, not sure how that would work with 9V. I think modular with Phoenix connectors would be better for RS-232.

I think this is a great feature add for your product, which we use on a regular basis. We are primarily a Sony shop so most of our displays are controlled via IP. Is there any chance of incorporating this into your unit?

We already have 5V IR as an optional accessory (breakout cable) our new product BP-XT-0. We are working on an RS232 Solution

A few years ago a male RJ-45 would have been great so that we could use a pre-made RJ-45 to DB-9 adapter. Today most items have lever-lock or screw terminal.





If you go with the bare wire...maybe strip, tin and label the conductors.

Jenny asked why haven't you called her.

I needed that!

Great reply!

Tommy Tutone has taken Jenny..................

I hope you're not considering 9V because Xantech used to INSIST on only 9V supplies being used. They did not insist on 9V because their products are meant to work on 9V. Clear? No.

See, back then (and now) their equipment was designed to work on 12V. I don't mean they worked on 12V supplies, I mean they worked on 12 actual volts. Huh? Simple but kinda dumb.

Xantech apparently wanted to be able to sell a cheap power supply to work their stuff, so they sold unregulated 9V supplies, which have no-load output of about 12 volts. No problem, right? No, actually, problem.

See, some people looked at the 12V spec and bought unregulated 12V supplies, which have no-load outputs of as much as 16 volts. Xantech products sometimes (aways?) lock up with this high power supply voltage.

So Xantech supplied regulated 12V supplies, too. And insisted that you get unregulated 9V or regulated 12V supplies.

At this point in their history the 9V unregulated were cheap and didn't output much current, while the 12V supplies were 1 amp supplies. So that's how they covered low current and high current.

They finally gave up on unregulated supplies altogether. They now have a lower current regulated 12V supply and a higher current 12V supply.

So... I hope you're not entertaining using 9V supplies because of anything Xantech did.

I just realized I should be merciful and answer your question: We use the voltages of the IR systems that are available.

The key word is SYSTEMS. Failures almost always have involved "systems" with parts from different brands. Manufacturers don't care if their stuff works with someone else's products! Why would they spend one penny checking all the crap on amazon to see if it will work with their product?

You ask if we could make a "5V IR" (you mean a 5V emitter? There's no such thing.) work on a 9V system. Usually IR emitters are simple LEDs connected to systems that output the proper current (and therefore the proper voltage) to output enough but not too much IR light. Double LEDs can be LEDs in series or LEDs in parallel, each type with its own issues. LEDs that output visible and IR light also have their own issues.

Consider: a twin LED, with LEDs in series, designed to work with a 12V system, may not output any light at all if connected to a perfectly working 5V system.

Ernie,

Thanks for the detailed info. We currently sell a break out cable (micros USB to USB A and male and female IR Plugs), no emitters. One for source, one for TV side and then we send IR down Fiber. The power we use is a 5V system.

Some dealers have commented about 9V but my understating is that if we had to pick one 5V would be it. I posted here to see if we are correct or need to redesign what we have.

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

Please get the instructions for the Xantech IR kit (DL85K) and become familiar with the terms we have used for forty years.

What's an IR Plug? Do you mean an 1/8" TS plug meant to connect to IR input jacks on audio/video components? Warning: those jacks are not all wired the same, and many are TRS connectors as they are intended to supply power to a proprietary IR sensor. In that setup, the tip would likely be power, though the tip of a TS connection would not be for power, but to supply an emitter signal to the device.

(Speaking of which, I've been reading sound reinforcement magazines -- Is TS a standard abbreviation for tip and shield? TRS for tip, ring, and shield?)

Okay... you don't have any emitters. You send IR down fiber. What for? Does that terminate in a big-ass fiber connector that is supposed to subtly be stuck on the front of a component?

How are the USB and "male and female IR plugs" broken out? Is that, say, micro USB to 1/8" TS? Or TRS?

We're not quite speaking with the same vocabulary yet.

I think I might choose 12V to standardize on something. 5V supplies are inexpensive and ubiquitous (no reference to the brand name), but that means you have to do something to make sure your customer doesn't see a 5V 100mA supply in his parts box, then try to use it with a system that requires 250 mA. A good solution would be to have your brand name on the power supply, but that means you have to buy your supplies in such large quantities that you can afford to have them personalized.

One thing I hate about the present state of modern power supply situations is that manufacturers such as yourself buy supplies in bulk because that's cheap and YOU don't have to pay for do the UL testing, but as soon as that supply is separated from that device, you are never again sure whether you're using the supply that came with your goodie.

It's my opinion based on a thorough zeroness of research that your customers are more likely to pick up the right (or a working) 12V supply if you make it run on 12V. I just realized this argument works even better for a 9V product, though. There are hardly any of those out there! It's hard to pick up the wrong 9V supply if there are only a few of them on hand.

Wait: here's my conclusive research: I just looked at the website for All Electronics, a surplus store within driving range for me. Their catalog shows twelve 12V supplies, ten 5V supplies, and five 9V supplies. Yup, 9V would make it less likely that a person would happen to have the wrong 9V supply on hand.

edt: fixed a typo.

I like to tag supplies with the model number of equipment that they support.

Hi Ernie,

First of all I am dumb sales guy looking for input.

Our product is basically a fiber HDMI balun that hooks up to Multimode SC fiber for true uncompressed 4k 60fps at 4:4:4 HDR.

We have made basically a transmitter to tun IR over the fiber so you guys dont have to run an extra cable (RS232 coming). We used 5V to because it was easier to use with HDMI. My question is does that still work with guys like you or do we have to redesign and make 12V

thanks for the feedback!

We never see the voltage. Use what you want.

Read through here to discover whether any attention is worthwhile with RS232.

I am surprised that the grammar police has not caught up with you yet. A balun is a device that converts a balanced to unbalanced signal (bal-un) or vice versa.

What you really have is called an extender.

Well, he did say that he is a "dumb sales guy" so...