Bod: No need to credit me! I was just throwing in another thumbs up for the idea!

G. :-)

P.S. By the way, URC is very well aware of this project.

This message was edited by GregoriusM on 08/15/02 04:27.40.

Just popping in to update you. The design is virtually finalized I just need to work out the box details. I have spent a very busy few weeks selecting parts, selecting useful CAD packages, marrying off my youngest son and generally wondering what day it is and which end is up. It will be a few weeks before parts are delivered and the prototype tested and then about a month after that to ship some units.

Got to get back to it but progress is being made.

Mike

Another update. Sometimes things take a little longer than one would like. I had to find a suitable enclosure for the IRCLONE-MX and of course couldn't finish the PCB until that was finalized. PCB manufacture, at a reasonable price, is taking a little longer than I had thought but the first prototypes will be available at the end of next week. That means that I will be taking this weekend off. This is a good thing for, as tolerant and supportive as my wife is, I don't want to be beaten over the head with a MX-500.

If the prototype boards are good I hope I can start production while I'm away on another vacation in mid September. With luck I'll be able to take orders by the last week in September. I'll be extending my web site to handle that next week.

Have a great weekend everyone. I'll be in touch.

Mike

Is it reasonable for a newcomer to request that someone summarize the expected capabilities of Mike's device?

GS

Basically - to be able to program your MX-500 from PC software and then upload the new configuration to the remote via IR signals.

Sounds good. Do you know what PC interface/software? VB, Excel, etc.?

Proprietary software that will run on at least Windows.

The IRCLONE-MX will be a small dongle that will attach to a USB port on your PC. I hope that it can be extended to include Macs but the USB device does not have a compatible driver at this time.The current drivers support Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP.

Originally it was intended to just capture (upload) what you had programmed into your MX-500, store it as a file on your PC and send a compatible file back to the remote (download). This is achieved by using the remote's cloning capability.

The user programmable memory contents of the MX-500 have been determined. It is now possible to provide software to allow you to program the MX from scratch, to change devices around, to swap button files and a few other features that I haven't had time to explore fully. Dave (dfr) and I have been working together to provide that software. There may be some other efforts under way to provide web based facilities for storing and exchanging MX-500 files but I am not aware of the details if they are.

Mike

Mike - Really exciting progress!. Is there any thought of setting things up so that one can learn directly to the PC? This might be of some help in those cases where the MX-500 seems unable to learn codes from some remotes, including those cases where learning of the same codes can take place from some remotes but not others. No big deal -- just curious.

Thanks for your work - enjoy your vacation.

Craig

Craig,

The IRCLONE-MX can capture raw key press timing data. Converting this to understandable data is a "later" thing so I am not advertising it as a feature yet.

Let me make a correction to yesterdays post. I said "Dave (dfr) and I have been working together to provide that software." That should read Dave has been doing the software and I have been encouraging him.

Mike

Craig

I just checked the key press capture feature and it works as follows. Once it is set up it will wait for up to 30 seconds for you to press a key. If this time expires without a key press it terminates and you get no results. If you did press a key the IRCLONE-MX will capture and report all light pulses until it sees a 3 second gap at which point it terminates and all results can be stored as a file and later examined. Activity is reported as groups of pulses and gaps. A group of pulses is reported as the total number of pulses and the total time from the first pulse edge to last pulse edge in a group. A gap is any period greater than 205 micro-seconds up to 3 seconds for which no light pulses are seen. Reporting is in 0.2 micro-second increments.

I think that covers pretty much every key press or group of key presses out there. I haven't measured what the minimum pulse width the IRCLONE-MX can capture is but I will get to that later.

Let me know if you agree or disagree that this covers everything or have any other suggestions.

Mike

Mike -- Gee, does this mean one can learn those really long key sequences that others here have been asking for?. Sounds to me like you have a really great product under development - I am personally amazed at how quickly you-all have done it. I think you have covered everything, but I am SURE that you will get lots of other advice. Thanks for the reply.

Craig

That's been my hope for this all along. I suspect we might be able to overcome some inherent weaknesses in a non-PC learning design by using the PC. "Send these 4 codes" just might work while trying to do that manually won't.

I would think that this would depend on how the memory is set up. If each button has a certain memory limit for the IR code, then that will be the limit to which your can truncate codes.

G.

You can do that now using a JP1 capable remote to teach your MX-500.

I have been able to teach upto 5 step macro to any button on the MX-500 using a OFA 8811, JP1, and using the extender that has been written for the 6012/8811 OFA remotes. Using the extender the macros created using JP1 and IR are executed soo fast that the MX500 thinks they are one signal.