Setting up LIRC and the IR remote controller

Post date: Dec 18, 2015 12:37:15 AM

Browsing on the web i found this article about LIRC and rasplex http://sourceforge.net/p/rasplex/wiki/GPIO-IR/

To access my rasplex i'm using an SSH client from my Windows 7 laptop. I'm using the putty.exe from simon Tatham. It's an old but reliable terminal software.

The username is root and the password is rasplex.

LIRC module should be already up in Rasplex.

Verifying if the module is up:

I just verify it bythe following command:

ls -l /dev/lir*

The print should be something like that:

crw------- 1 root root 249, 0 Jan 1 1970 /dev/lirc0

Next command to type to verify LIRC module is:

dmesg | grep lirc

You should get something like this:

[ 7.198363] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 249 [ 7.259752] lirc_rpi: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned. [ 7.293149] lirc_rpi lirc_rpi.0: lirc_dev: driver lirc_rpi registered at minor = 0 [ 7.293171] lirc_rpi: driver registered! [ 7.848510] input: lircd as /devices/virtual/input/input1 [ 8.245523] lirc_rpi: auto-detected active low receiver on GPIO pin 18

Creating the lircd.conf file:

I'm now going to use the command "irrecord" to capture the key presses from my remote and assign them each a name which is then used by XBMC to create an action.

It is useful to get a list of available commands which XBMC can use, which i can then copy it when the irrecord program asks for them.

First of all i have to kill the lircd process by the following command:

kill $(pidof lircd)

and i run the ireccord command:

irrecord --list-namespace | grep KEY

This is the output of the command on my system.

I copy it somewhere to copy and past the KEY name in the next step.

Implementation <<<< Previous Next>>>> Conclusion

Juust need to exit the SSH terminal by typing the "exit" command and restart Rasplex.

That's it....

Now i can use the IR telecommand to drive the Rasplex App.....

Let's put everything in a Boxand connect it to my Smasung TV.

irrecord - application for recording IR-codes for usage with lirc

Below you'll find the output from my SSH console for the irrecord command

Then have to run irreccord one more time to create the config file.

irrecord -d /dev/lirc0 ~/.config/lircd.conf

Irrecord will output to /storage/.config/lircd.conf, a file containing the results of IR remote controller recording.

Irrecord

This program will record the signals from your remote control

and create a config file for lircd.

A proper config file for lircd is maybe the most vital part of this

package, so you should invest some time to create a working config

file. Although I put a good deal of effort in this program it is often

not possible to automatically recognize all features of a remote

control. Often short-comings of the receiver hardware make it nearly

impossible. If you have problems to create a config file READ THE

DOCUMENTATION of this package, especially section "Adding new remote

controls" for how to get help.

If there already is a remote control of the same brand available at

http://www.lirc.org/remotes/ you might also want to try using such a

remote as a template. The config files already contain all

parameters of the protocol used by remotes of a certain brand and

knowing these parameters makes the job of this program much

easier. There are also template files for the most common protocols

available in the remotes/generic/ directory of the source

distribution of this package. You can use a template files by

providing the path of the file as command line parameter.

Please send the finished config files to <lirc@bartelmus.de> so that I

can make them available to others. Don't forget to put all information

that you can get about the remote control in the header of the file.

Press RETURN to continue.

Now start pressing buttons on your remote control.

It is very important that you press many different buttons and hold them

down for approximately one second. Each button should generate at least one

dot but in no case more than ten dots of output.

Don't stop pressing buttons until two lines of dots (2x80) have been

generated.

Press RETURN now to start recording.

................................................................................

Found const length: 108185

Please keep on pressing buttons like described above.

................................................................................

Space/pulse encoded remote control found.

Signal length is 67.

Found possible header: 9074 4490

Found trail pulse: 602

Found repeat code: 9076 2218

Signals are space encoded.

Signal length is 32

Now enter the names for the buttons.