Infra Red Weekend

With the amount of equipment in the rack piling up quicker than a soccer team after scoring a goal, I had to start laying the groundwork for a means of controlling it all in such a fashion that even my wife could use it.

The solution; an infra red distribution network connecting all the components and a couple of strategically placed “IR Targets”. The rough schematic that you see on the left is the IR Control Network that I’m in the process of building. When completed, it will allow all the equipment to be operated with the door of the cabinet closed.

The controlling device will be my NevoSL remote, which I haven’t yet started to program. This remote is capable of using WiFi to communicate with its own proprietary IR Transmitter called NevoLink, that then generates the appropriate IR signals from the WiFi command. One of the other big benefits of NevoLink is that you can send just one “macro” command which gets translated into many IR commands. This means that you don’t have to point the remote for 10 seconds at the target until the entire command sequence has completed.

Unfortunately, I will not be using the NevoLink initially as I’ll wait until all the equipment is in place and calibrated before embarking upon this level of automation.

The IR Control blocks are the Kordz brand from HTCustomCables, and when you look at the specs and manuals, you’ll find that they are in fact the same as the very popular (and expensive) Xantech blocks. They can be daisy-chained to increase the number of devices that you can control. You can also purchase twin emitters (basically a Y cable) to double the capacity if required. The wiring is CAT5, so it’s cheap and readily available.

I’ve also attached a couple of photos showing the Control Blocks in place at the back of the rack. I’ll post an update later on when I have connected all the emitters, but I can’t do this until all the A/V equipment is in it’s final resting place.