How to receive IR fr 3rd party remotes?

youstra

I've got an installation where the client wants to use MX-850s in addition to wall-mounted TPs. We've got 3 RF receivers going to the base station in the wire room, which converts back to IR.

The question is how to to get the IR stream INTO the NI4k.

Tech support pointed me to the robustly-priced axd-irplus and axr-irsm (and the Mio Modero IR receiver), which would require me to transfer IR from the MX-850 base station via a stick-on emitter. Huh?

Is there no hard-wire way to do this w/ AMX gear?

Do I need a 3rd party IR->232 or IR->IP?

There's a possiblity of multiple remotes being fired simultaneously, so I was hoping for ~3 conduits into Netlinx

How do other folks accomplish this?

DHawthorne

I had the exact situation a few years back, and I just used the AXD-IR+ with an emitter. I stuck it inside the rack in a gem box. When it comes to unusual stuff like that, I don't balk at the cost, I just tell the customer that is the price of doing it that way, and present alternatives. Then the extra cost is their decision, not mine. It actually cost more in terms of labor to capture the AMX IR and load it into the IR remotes by far than the IR box itself. It was an annoying, tedious, time-consuming process, since existing wiring limited me to one IR feed back to my rack (the system we were replacing was a simple IR repeater thing, and that was all the wiring we had to work with), so every remote needed distinct codes for zone isolation.

shr00m-dew

The Landmark PMB-IR box is cheap and works well with Netlinx. It will run over CAT5 to an ICSN port. You will still need an emmiter stuck on the front of the box.

The ONLY issue with this is the Landmark receiver is it does not offer 255 buttons, but somewhere around 213 or so..

In fact they are on clearance for $80 right now in the sale section.

Kevin D.

youstra

How to capture the codes?

Thanks for the feedback. How would I capture the codes? Is there a specific AMX mega remote or do I spit it out of the NI4K somehow?
-Bill

DHawthorne

There is a specific AMX remote. If you want to avoid buying one just to learn it into your other remotes, I am reasonably sure you can find an RC-5000 file with the codes on remotecentral.com.

Reese Jacobs

How to receive IR fr 3rd party remotes?

The AMX remote actually only supports 132 discrete IRs (channels to the PMB-IRI). The old Phast remote had four modes of operation (Lights, AV, ...) and each of these could be used to generate a unique IR code from any of the 33 buttons on the remote. Hence, 132 codes is the maximum you can generate and use with the IRI. It is still pretty useful if you are not trying to do a very complicated remote that requires several hundred channels.

There are numerous Pronto files around with the AMX IR codes and I think even IR Edit (and the old IR Files collection that predated IR Edit) have the AMX IR codes captured. You can pull the file from the AMX website also and then emit the IR codes from AMX to capture them into a remote. I think this is how I captured my first set for a Pronto before remotecentral.com had them online.

shr00m-dew

132, 213... At least I had all the correct numbers, just a little off on the total.

Kevin D.

Spire_Jeff

Not sure on the landmark unit, but the AXD-IR+ works well enough. I have one unit and am using about 230 channels on it. It would be easy enough to add three AXD-IR+ units if you think there will be a problem with multiple remotes sending at the same time. As for learning the codes, the MX-850 has the ability to view pronto files and you can drag and drop the codes right onto the MX-850 remote. a quick search of remotecentral.com produced the two files I am going to attempt to attach. I know that the AMX ALL MODELS file has all 255 ir codes and they all seem to be valid. No experience with the Landmark file.

Jeff

shr00m-dew

Since price seems to be an issue, you could do 3 of the landmark pieces for only $30 more than one AMX piece.

Granted the AMX would be an easier solution, but given my market I've learned to do a lot for as little as possible.

I use X number of IR channels for source selection, each source only needs a maximum of 40 buttons. Just use SWITCH.CASE for those 40 buttons. So if you had 10 sources, plus your 40 buttons, you still have 82 channels left for volume, lights, global, etc...

Kevin D.

Spire_Jeff

Anyone know what the current draw is on the PMB-IRI? I couldn't find any documentation on the AMX website and I am just wondering how many could be placed on a single ICSNet link.

Thanks,
Jeff

shr00m-dew

Hmm. It's not listed on the Power Calc XLS file either. We've always had individual runs and hub cards. Surely you can't just parallel ISCnet wires into one port can you?? I know you can dasiy chain them, but using up two CAT5's at each one is rarely an option.

Kevin D.

Spire_Jeff

In the situation I am thinking of, the IR is routed through a B&K system so there is central access to the IR from all zones. It would be easy to put three of the PMB-IRI in the rack and then tap into the IR from individual zones or grab one of the IR outputs from the B&K units.

Jeff

DHawthorne

Spire_Jeff wrote:

Anyone know what the current draw is on the PMB-IRI? I couldn't find any documentation on the AMX website and I am just wondering how many could be placed on a single ICSNet link.

Thanks,
Jeff

I have yet to see a Landmark device you couldn't pull off the power lines from the connector and power it locally. For that matter, you could make yourself a breakout cable to measure the current draw yourself and see if you really need to do so. That said, I think the draw is minimal on these, and unless you are cutting it close already, you aren't likely to have a problem. Your pinouts are on this tech note: http://www.amx.com/techsupport/PDNTechNote.asp?id=12 .

youstra

Hi all,
I picked up 4 PMB-IRIs and I'm not having luck. Can anyone spot the problem?

I'm using the RF-IRMod module. The AMX site has a PMB-IR driver (not IRI), but when I open the zip and read the .txt file, it says it's for the PLB-RF/PLB-IR. I'm trying it anyway since it's the closest thing.

The devs show up on my system tree and I've renumbered them 6001 - 6004.

The DEFINE_DEVICE section has:

//Infrared Remote Control In (via Universal Remote Control)
dvIRIn1 = 6001:1:0
dvIRIn2 = 6002:1:0
dvIRIn3 = 6003:1:0
dvIRIn4 = 6004:1:0

vdvIRIn1 = 36001:1:0
vdvIRIn2 = 36002:1:0
vdvIRIn3 = 36003:1:0
vdvIRIn4 = 36004:1:0


... the DEFINE_VARIABLE section has this

dev adIRIn[4] = {
vdvIRIn1,
vdvIRIn2,
vdvIRIn3,
vdvIRIn4
}

...module definition includes:

DEFINE_MODULE 'RF-IRMod' mdlIR1(vdvIRIn1, dvIRIn1);
DEFINE_MODULE 'RF-IRMod' mdlIR2(vdvIRIn2, dvIRIn2);
DEFINE_MODULE 'RF-IRMod' mdlIR3(vdvIRIn3, dvIRIn3);
DEFINE_MODULE 'RF-IRMod' mdlIR4(vdvIRIn4, dvIRIn4);

...then I have a channel event like this:

CHANNEL_EVENT[adIRIn,channel.channel] {
ON: {
@ IR Cmd Input ON:', itoa(channel.channel)";
}
OFF: {
@ IR Cmd Input OFF:', itoa(channel.channel)";
}
}

...BUT I get nothin in the notifications or diagnostic tabs when I hit the IRI with some AMX codes.

Any thoughts? I see no support/help/doc on the PMB-IRI on the website.

Thanks for any help.
-Bill

youstra

One added detail to the post below:

When I send command "VERSION" to the PMB-IRIs, it responds:

Line 3 :: MODULE: VERSION: 1.00 - 23:41:28
Line 4 :: MODULE: MANUFACTURER=AMX; MODEL=PMB-RF/IR; TYPE=RADIO - 23:41:28

For input, I'm using an IR Blaster from a Universal Remote base station (the 300), with an MX-850.

Please - any help would be deeply appreciated.

Joe Hebert

youstra wrote:

...then I have a channel event like this:

I have no experience with the device you are speaking of but I do know the IRX-SM+ connected to the IR input of an NI-700 generates BUTTON_EVENTs not CHANNEL_EVENTs. Might that be your problem?

shr00m-dew

You also need to send it the PHAST ir codes. it doesn't respond to the AMX codes.

Kevin D.

youstra

Great - thanks for all the tips. I've got it working with the Phast codes. I got the phast CCF from here (same from remotecentral.com), but it's an incomplete list and about 15% of the codes don't work.

What's the best way to get all the valid phast IR codes? Is there some other CCF circulating? Or some master phast remote?

-Bill

Reese Jacobs

AMX PLB-IR IR Codes

Attached is a ZIP file with a complete CCF for the PLB-IR1 IR codes and also the AMX IRL file with the codes for the PLB-IR1 remote control in AMX format. I have used the CCF file that is attached to create Pronto files using most if not all IR codes on a Netlinx system using the PMB-IRI device & module and it works fine. Remember that there are only 132 valid codes on this remote control organized into 4 groups (A/V, Lights, Aux, Comm) of 33 codes each for a total of 132. Hope this helps,

Reese