I will post an email I received with all of the RS232 commands, and the way in which you can turn the units on using RS232. I can't believe that Sharp doesn't keep this uniform for all of their TV's. I will add the file tonight and repost when it is up.

Mike

The RS-232 is inthe back of the owners manuals.

THe only thing I've found thats missing is the Energy Star Switch that I posted and the fact that POWR___1 will turnthe units on.

The RS-232 has seems pretty darn consistent to me over the models/years.

There is also an RSPW0001 command that is a toggle for using the power on command. By sending the RSPW0001 Command ONCE, you will be able to use the regular Power On Command. If you send the RSP0001 command again, you will not be able to use the power on command.

Note: This only works on some TV's, and I can't remember the models.

Mike

Eddie Brown

SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Customer Assistance Center

1300 Naperville Road

Romeoville, IL 60446

(630)378-3398

-----Original Message-----
From: Funk, Russell
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 9:27 AM
To: Brown, Eddie
Cc: Stacey, Michael
Subject: RE: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off



Here you go and WRITE IT DOWN:



HV4U & HV6U TVs,

With the AVC connected to the TV. Only the TV MAIN Power button is off.

1) Hold down INPUT & VOLUME - buttons on TV

2) Turn on TV by pressing MAIN Power button on tv.

3) Continue to hold in INPUT & VOLUME - until service menu appears (blue font overlay menu)

a) If a "K" is present, quickly press Volume - & Channel - at the same time.

4) Use remote Channel Down button to "StandBy Type 0"

5) Now use VOLUME + to change it to "StandBy Type 1"

6) Turn off the TV using the standby power button on remote or top of tv.

Now the RS232 commands are:

POWR0_ _ _ TV into Standby

POWR1_ _ _ TV On

*Do not attempt this on anything other than HV4 & HV6.





-----Original Message-----
From: Brown, Eddie
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 11:03 AM
To: Funk, Russell
Subject: FW: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off

Russ this guy is asking to correspond with a tech directly can you figure out what he needs and help him out?



Eddie Brown

SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Customer Assistance Center

1300 Naperville Road

Romeoville, IL 60446

(630)378-3398

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Siegel [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 10:35 AM
To: Brown, Eddie
Subject: Fw: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off



Any word from the engineers yet?

As this may require some interaction, it would be helpful if I could email whoever has the technical expertise to answer this question (to avoid waiting days between each response).



Thanks

Dan



----- Original Message -----

From: Daniel Siegel

To: Brown, Eddie

Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 2:45 PM

Subject: Re: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off



I tried this, but it didnt solve the problem (see below).

The RS232 already worked, so it must have been enabled.

In any event, trying this enabling command (and the power on and off commands you listed, which are slightly different from those in the manual) didnt seem to change anything.

Let me explain this in greater detail.



I have 2 Sharp 37" LCD TVs -- the LC-37HV4U (about 2 yrs old) and the LC-37D5U (new).

The manuals describe the RS232 setup and commands, and I have them both working (with one exception).

The manuals are virtually identical in this regard, with a few exceptions relating to slight differences between the TVs.

They both, however, only list an OFF command (Standby), and do not list an ON command (to return from Standby).



The OFF/Standby command listed in the manual is "POWR0" followed by 3 spaces.

This works on both TVs.

I guessed that the ON command would be "POWR1" followed by 3 spaces, and this worked fine on the newer TV (5U).



However, I cannot be this ON command to work on the LC-37HV4U (even after trying many other variations, including "POWR0001", "POWR1 "", "POWR1111" and dozens of other combinations of digits, spaces, etc). Yet, all other commands work fine.



So, I need help getting the ON (or return from Standby) command to work on the LC-37HV4U.

It seems unlikely that this command would not work on this TV when all other commands work.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks

Dan

----- Original Message -----

From: Brown, Eddie

To: '[email protected]'

Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 2:27 PM

Subject: FW: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off







Eddie Brown

SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Customer Assistance Center

1300 Naperville Road

Romeoville, IL 60446

(630)378-3398

-----Original Message-----
From: Brown, Eddie
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 4:26 PM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: FW: Ircodes for RS232 On/Off







Eddie Brown

SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Customer Assistance Center

1300 Naperville Road

Romeoville, IL 60446

(630)378-3398



Please save this info that I have sent to CAC in the past.





Please advise whomever that this is given out as a Tip only.





RS232C Power On Solution

1. Connect to PC with RS232. G series power on.

2. Send command "RSPW0001" from PC.
(Enables TV to use ON command)

3. Send command "POWR0000". => TV turn off.

4. Send command "POWR0001". => TV turn on.

And if send "RSPW0000". => Shift to "Default" can not turn on TV with RS232

But isn't that sort of like saying "the only thing missing from packet the car dealer gave me when I purchased the car is the key to turn the car on" :-). Seriously, this question comes up again and again and again and it's absurd that Sharp does not address this in their manual. I wonder how many hours have been wasted on the part of dealers and Sharp representatives every time a dealer installs one of these with a control system for the first time.

I suspect the only reason you see serial ports and protocols on these devices is that the same LCD display model inhabits both the commercial and the residentical SKU. Then the marketing gurus enter and whether to meet some government specification and obtain some bonus or because they think it will affect consumer purchasing decisions they have the software changed to reflect this "important marketing point." Only no one stopped to figure out how the circuitry or code affected the serial port and chip set as that would involve engineering time. Almost as bad is VUPOWER's post which suggests that there are different secret handshakes for different models and woe to whomever sends the wrong set of commands to the wrong display.

I found out yesterday that one of the high end video cards I love and use will probably not support vcr's connected to it. That was after spending 3 hours Monday trying to fix the problem, including purchasing a new VCR. It has to do with time base correction affecting sync as the signal is processed. They did not have any VCRs available for testing so put the unit out anyway and I suppose they felt that as 1/2 inch VHS is such a low fidelity video format who would use one with a high end display and video scaler? Never having worked for a manufacturer I have no idea how a decision on these feature sets is reached. Laziness and/or ignorence seems obvious as would the law of unintended consequences. I do understand that updating these manuals is expenisve. Cannot an up to date manual be placed in .pdf format and placed on the company's web site? I have read so many different solutions to this serial port issue with Sharp that I have no idea whom or what to believe. It can be disabled in the menu. You need to send specific sreial codes to disable enegy star. You follow VUPOWER's command set above--but only for that TV. I just wish one could reach someone at Sharp who had both power to affect some change on corportate policy.



Lord have mercy.

Alan

I have a hunch (and only a hunch) that Sharp is quiet about the Energy Star workaround because what good is energy star rating if the user can turn it off? And even better if they publish the instructions in the user manual? I would imagine some arcane pencil pusher at DOE decided that Energy Star compliance means that the whole processor needs to be off - including the communications port. Go figure.

I am sure my friend Alan and I will agree for once that this is just a case of the government sticking its hands and business where it doesn't belong.

No, with energy prices hitting record highs I think the idea behind Energy Star is good. Products that use less energy are good for both the consumer in terms of his energy costs, society in terms of reliance on a scarce and expensive resource, and the ecology in terms of waste. However, what idiot would design control circuitry such that when off, the chip to which the serial bus sits it powered off? There is nothing wrong with energy savings, per se. There is something wrong when a manufacturer takes the cheap way out, kludges a solution that screws up others parts of his product and fails to post a solution publicly. Design a product correctly and we would not be posting for help nor supply rediculous work arounds--although I will grant that sending a initialization string is hardly a handicap if, indeed, it works on all models and all sitautions.

I think my good friend, EJ, would agree that a product designed such that when off cannot be powered on is poorly designed. If they could design their IR circuitry correctly they should have designed their serial bus accordingly. Bet energy star exists in the Sharp commercial units but is disabled in software by the factory. This is a bad design and Sharp can give a damn. It screws us but how important are we? Vote with your feet folks but few of you will. And, of course, even if all of us sold LG, Mitsubishi, Sony, or some other brand of LCD it would have zero affect on Sharp and the piss poor product they produce. After all, is it 3 of us here on this board who actually take advantage of serial bus on products?

Alan

I guess I was wrong. Oh well, we're still friends Alan. As for Sharp, I am more concerned with the piss poor picture than the piss poor control.

Had a guy today ask if he should by a 45" sharp or a 42" fujitsu. I laughed. I don't think there is even a comparison.

My father in law has a 37" LCd that I cant stand to look at. Looks like ass. He loves it though.

They don't look all that bad if you throw it into normal witht he bars on the side. Once you stretch the picture, it looks aweful. The Sharp's looked really good a few years ago, what happened.

Mike

I remember running into that many years ago with a 20K Faroudja line multiplier and a projector. We had to use a time base corrector (TBC) with the VCR. For a while we had to spec TBCs them for any such situation, but that was many years ago.

And now it sounds like we've come full circle.

In this case it was either carelessness or rushing the product to market. They knew that vcrs can cause this sort of problem and indeed they encountered and solved the issue with an other of their products. But different design teams--and the failure of design teams to communicate to each other ( they do wish to reinvent the wheel which means we field animals spend more time suffering solving the problem ).

VCRs present all sorts of issues to video processing software as sync is not rock solid. The point of my example was not to lead this post off topic but to point out how engineering issues that are known and solved continually make their way into products because manufacturers are loath to spend the necessary money to design their units correctly from the beginning.

Someone in the marketing department thought having Energy Star rating was a good idea. But they clearly did not design this from the ground up or they screwed up monumentally. A serial bus that is turned off when the unit is powered down is not merely bad design but stupid. Funny how this seems to always crop up on Sharp designs. Anyone remember the Pioneer plasma that was produced in combonation with Sharp that also turned off the serial port when the unit was powered off.

Similiarly, a manufacturer that places a scaler on the market without testing its compatibilty with VCRs--which are known to cause problems in scalers-- is also guilty of placing money ahead of sound engineering; or maybe they have short memories and forget what they discovered on other products. ( I was surprised to learn that many products are made in different factories all over the far east, from Tiwan, to Korea, to Sigapore, to China and it is not all that surprising that engineering lessons need to be relearned as they are manufactured by different engineers in different factories under a common brand.

It is always about money. Manfufacturers change factories to save money. Engineering time costs money. Product QA costs money. The average consumer could care less so the manufacturer could care less. Only we automation folks have to pay the price for these badly engineered products. Since the CEDIA market does not really affect bottom lines they don't spend the money. The firmware to the video card will, I suspect, be modified. They are a small compnay, I talk to the engineer who writes the firmware ( my incessent chatter to a Korean engineer whose face never changes expression and never acknowledges if he has understood what I have said is quite amusing ) and they seem to have the correct attidute--to a point. If it takes too much time and cost too much I bet they too will cheap out.

Alan

Alan, is this the KDS Pioneer card you're discussing?

vwpower44

Is there anyone else that I can contact about what you posted. I have a LC37HV6U TV and I have tried everything that everyone has posted. STILL NO POWER ON. I am highly frustrated b/c our the user purchased this TV and wants it to work, but they don't like IR emitters, however w/out a discrete on I have to use it at minimum for turning the thing on.

I can't figure out why Sharp went all the way of having rs232 and then not allowing a way to turn it on. That is ridiculous.

If anyone has any other way to turn it on please let me know. I have tried getting into the service menu, issuing the energy star off command and everything else suggested, but it still will not Power on w/a "POWR1___" command.