Pretty simple. Have a look at this picture above. The usual TV remote sends a pulsed IR signal which has some instruction encoded in it, like increase or lower the volume, or changing the channel. This remote jammer, however, sends a steady IR pulse at about 40kHz. This pulse has no data encoded in it. Hence the TV receiver receives no instruction, even if some one else is frantically pressing buttons on the remote.
Cost: ~$10
Difficult: Moderately Easy
Skills Required:
- Experience with electronics
- Soldering
- Programming
Materials:
- An ATtiny13/45/85 chip – Preferably an ATtiny45
- IR LED – chances of this working are better if you use an IR LED salvaged from an old remote.
- Small Li-ion Battery (about 150-300mAh) – small enough to fit in a Tic-tac box
- Li-ion Battery recharge circuit
- General PCB
- PCB mountable switch
- Jumper wire
- Tic-tac box – or any enclosure you like; even a mini Altoids box will look great!
Step 2: Program The AT tiny: The Circuit…
Step 3: Program The AT tiny: Upload The Code…
Follow this guide to see how to burn the boot loader and upload the code to an ATtiny13 chip.
What is a boot loader? – If you’re using the AT tiny chip for the first time, you probably have to ‘burn the boot loader‘. Basically the boot loader is a small piece of code that lets you run Arduino code on any microcontroller. It has to be uploaded or “burned” to the microcontroller’s flash memory before uploading sketches.
For uploading the code to a different microcontroller, check out the following links:
- For ATtiny45
- For ATtiny85
- For ATtiny2313
- For ATmega8
Here’s the code (suitable for an ATtiny13):
void setup(){
pin Mode(1, OUTPUT);
}
void loop(){
digital Write(1, HIGH);
delay Microseconds(12);
digital Write(1, LOW);
delay Microseconds(12);
}
If you have any other at tiny with more than 2K of flash memory, the following code may work out better.
void setup(){
pin Mode(1, OUTPUT);
}
void loop(){
tone(1, 38500); //adjust the frequency if it doesn't work for your TV
}
Step 4: Solder the Circuit…
I soldered the entire circuit onto a general PCB about 2×2.5cm in dimensions. The circuit diagram is shown above. Note that I added an on/off switch which isn’t shown in the diagram.
Here’s an excellent tutorial on how to solder tracks on a PCB.
Read More: Tic-Tac TV Remote Jammer