TV Remote Jammer 1688001

Project Logs

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12/14.19-- explaining the pictures edition
ryan.wilson • 12/17/2019 at 16:45 • 0 comments

On Saturday, we worked for several hours to try to get the LEDs to jam the tv remote. While they seemed to be emitting in the right frequency range, they still weren't jamming the remote. We came up with two hypotheses as to why it wasn't working:

1. The IR LEDs weren't properly aimed at the tv

2. Even though the IR LEDs were in the right frequency range, the frequency of the voltage across them was not the "magic" frequency.

To address the first issue, we attatched the remote to a baby breadboard that the two LEDs were wired up to (see images below). The remote still worked.

To address the second issue, we tried the remote at every frequency. We took turns-- one person would change the frequency while the other person tried to change the channel. But still, the remote prevailed.

Then, we got a giant poteniometer (the big black circle thingy) to try to see if we could get more precise frequencies. But STILL the remote worked.

'Twas a discouraging time. But eventually, it was time to do as the Lord commands and take a Sabbath.
12/14.19
wajqnosewicz • 12/14/2019 at 16:16 • 0 comments

You alreday now..
Know.
I'll explain in words later. I'm hungry.
NExt steps include.
-Wajq
12/13.2019
wajqnosewicz • 12/14/2019 at 05:21 • 0 comments

I really hope my unique style of dating these entries catches on.
Anyways, today in lab, we split the work. Ryan worked on the Multisim simulation, trying to find the frequency that the simulation would produce. Her answer was that we should change our 470 ohm resistor to 315 K ohm resistor. This worked on the simulation, but when we tried in the real world, the freqency dropped from 33kHz to 3.3KHz ( a factor of ten). This data was fascinating. And by "fascinating" I mean confusing. We currently have no explanation, but will find one shortly.
The frequency of the LEDs is the same as the frequency of the circuit as seen by the green and blue dashes occuring in at the same time intervals.
I worked on probing the circuit with the oscilloscope some more. I tried to find if there was a rhyme/reason for how the frequency changed. Then I started on creating the hybrid TV remote and jammer infrared combination system. (Basically scotch tapes and some leds). I did not finish this, but this will be the first thing I work on in the lab tomorrow. The premise is that the led light signal from the remote will have to pass through the jamming led light of our circuit if we tape it correctly.
Our next steps include testing. We just need a little more time.
(Is this how Dr. Banner feels? )
-Wajq.
12.12/19 (the Second one)
wajqnosewicz • 12/13/2019 at 05:35 • 0 comments

The next 1.5 hours (after lunch) were spent applying this information. This time, in our circuit diagram, we were able to see patterns like port 2 and port 6 are connected together and then connected to ground. We missed this the first three times we wired up our circuit.
We knew how to set up the oscilloscope and it was sensing the circuit. This way after we created the TV jammer, we knew where to place the sensing probe. And the frequency was 33KHZ! If we twisted the potentiometer, the frequency would adjust! This was working like we thought it would!
As seen in this photo, we hit 33.60 kHz.
We pointed this at the TV, but the TV remote still was able to send a signal. This was frustrating.
Our next steps would be to place the infrared bulbs in front of the infrared bulbs of the remote. That way the signal has to pass through our jamming signal first.
Our infrared light bulbs that we know are sending out a signal.
Also, maybe nothing is wrong, and we just don't have the magic frequency that the TV and the remote respond to.
We'll iterate through all the khz values.
-Wajq
12.12/19 (The first three hours)
wajqnosewicz • 12/13/2019 at 05:25 • 0 comments

So this morning, we worked on learning the theory behind the 555 Timer. We learned all the pins and what they should be connected to. Then we built a trial circuit. This circuit was plugged into the oscilloscope and WE GOT VALUES! These values show that a signal in the order of 9 KHZ was created. The signal we are trying to create is on the order of 30- 40 KHZ. Rats. We could try changing the resistors to manually get a different frequency. This really took 3 hours.
Our next steps are to transfer the knowledge by doing this deep dive into Timer Theory to our actual circuit. We might find a problem in how we originally set up our circuit (or not). We honestly just need more time.
-Wajq
12/11.19
wajqnosewicz • 12/12/2019 at 05:42 • 0 comments

Today we debugged our circuit. Remember that positive trajectory of we were moving on? Completely derailed. We are deep in the weeds trying to understand the 555 Timer. The oscilloscope does not have a sinusoidal or square-wave or any wave besides a DC offset voltage line. This is a problem. The Timer basically creates a function. We took our timer out of the circuit, and tried with new resistors to wire it up completely, to see if a signal would be produced, and then time was over for the day!
We plan to work on it tomorrow during our 3 hours of lab time. Our next steps include deciding to either rebuild the TV jammer circuit or to build a timer circuit and then adjust our current TV jammer circuit.
-Wajq.
12/9.2019
wajqnosewicz • 12/09/2019 at 20:30 • 0 comments

Today was an auspicious start to our project. We built the entire thing on an Elvis
Bread Board, but it didn't jam the signal. Tomorrow, we will fine tune the potenionmeter to be between the 35khz and 40khz zone that the TV remote probably operates at.
I can't wait!
-Wajq