Tech it Yourself

With the hardware built the next step is getting the Raspberry Pi up and running and installing LIRC. Alexba.in has a comprehensive post for both of these things: RaspberryPi Quickstart and Setting Up LIRC on the RaspberryPi.

I discovered and modified a few things along the way, so here’s what I did:

Download the latest Raspbian Image and follow their Installation Guide.
Network the Pi over wired Ethernet using RJ45 connector.
Connect to the Pi over SSH with PuTTy.

Since I’d like to connect over WiFi I’ve added a Belkin USB F7D2101. For future development, I also added a ORICO BTA-402 USB Bluetooth 4.0 Micro Adapter Dongle for controlling a Play Station 3 using GIMX.

Photograph of hardware with Bluetooth and Wireless USB devices.

With the Pi temporarily connected by Ethernet cable, I set up the wireless connection via the command line over SSH.
The following commands update the Software and Firmware then sync the Time with a source on the Internet:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install git-core
sudo wget http://goo.gl/1BOfJ -O /usr/bin/rpi-update && sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-update
sudo rpi-update

sudo apt-get install ntpdate
sudo ntpdate -u ntp.ubuntu.com

Next install LIRC

sudo apt-get install lirc

Modify /etc/modules and /etc/lirc/hardware.conf for the specific hardware being used:

/etc/modules

lirc_dev    
lirc_rpi gpio_in_pin=23 gpio_out_pin=22

/etc/lirc/hardware.conf

######################
# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf    
#    
# Arguments which will be used when launching lircd    
LIRCD_ARGS="--uinput"    
# Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file    
# START_LIRCMD=false    
# Don't start irexec, even if a good config file seems to exist.    
# START_IREXEC=false    
# Try to load appropriate kernel modules LOAD_MODULES=true    
# Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.    
DRIVER="default"    
# usually /dev/lirc0 is the correct setting for systems using udev    
DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"    
MODULES="lirc_rpi"
# Default configuration files for your hardware if any    
LIRCD_CONF="" LIRCMD_CONF=""    
######################

Restart LIRC to pick up these changes:

sudo /etc/init.d/lirc stop
mode2 -d /dev/lirc0

Pressing buttons on an IR remote pointed at the receiver and activity similar to the following should be displayed:

space 16300    
pulse 95    
space 28794    
pulse 80    
space 19395    
pulse 83

In the next post on this topic I’ll cover recording the IR signal from remotes using the irrecord command and testing functionality from the command line. I’ll also install Node.js and the client library lirc_node for controlling LIRC from a web site.

Universal Remote - Part IV