How to (Cheaply!) Repair Your TV Remote Control

 Cheap and Cheerful!

The other day I scored a TV to fix.  It also came with a remote that needed some attention.  The volume buttons didn't work nor did 'Channel Down'.

This is usually due to the conductive pads on the rubber membrane wearing out.  You can buy conductive paint to rejuvenate the buttons, but that stuff isn't cheap, and probably isn't lying around when you want to fix something RIGHT NOW.

So I thought I'd share a little trick I know.

The Patient, Tools and Operation Table.

Altium MultiChannel

Multi-Channel Rules

Just recently I was reading this post on the EEVBlog forum and thought "Ah ha!  I've done this before." Should be easy.  Famous last words.

So after spending a ridiculous amount of time workign out what the missing step was, I thought I'd better capture it for the next time I want to use it.

WHY MULTI-CHANNEL

You use a multi-channel design in Altium when you have multiples of an identical sub-circuit.  QAll you need to do is lay out the one channel, and then you can duplicate the layout by 'Copy Room Formats".  This has saved me a ton of time in the past.

THE PROBLEM

Altium uses a complex naming convention:

Multi Channel Meter, Part 2

From Idea to Implementation

What I really love about my hobby projects is that I can develop answers to questions that I can't explore at work.  20kW HF transmitters, Radar Installations all over the world, and Cutting Edge elemental analysers?
No worries.

Digitally Controlled Gain, Isolated PSU Choices?  Fergedaboudit.

In part 1, I detailed my path from the concept of a multi-channel volt meter, to a working system based on individual modules.  Here I'd like to talk about how I refined the design into my first prototype and then look at where I'm going from there.  Like Art, Engineering is never finished, you just chose a point to stop...

Multi Channel Meter

So after all that background...

Recently I've blogged about DIY Isolated Supplies and Microcontrolled Analogue Gain, as these have been necessary building blocks for my latest project - a multi channel voltage / current meter.

Microcontrolled Analogue Gain

Digital Controlled Gain

For a long time I've wanted to implement a gain stage where I was able to alter the gain under digital control.

Why?

Back in my Uni days, I have to build an Automatic Gain Control circuit, and was greatly dissapointed that the trick there wasn't variable GAIN but variable ATTENUATION on the front end.  At the end of the day, that approach works well where i used it, but I always wanted to have true programmable gain.

But this was the case of a solution looking for a problem, until I decided that I wanted to build some test equipment that required programmable gain!  So, to test the theory I cooked up this:

It Worked!  Eventually!

Isolation Options

Isolated PSU

So if you find out you need to isolate your circuit, you will need to power it over the isolation barrier, and there are options out there to do that.

Finding myself in that position, and being a notorious tight-arse I started to look at DIY options.

Keeping Things Isolated

Why Use Isolated Power Supplies

With most hobby electronics, all your system parts tend to operate from a common ground.  This makes things easy to understand, as you just measure what a device is 'doing' with respect to ground, and you can make things happen in your design.

For example, you can decide that 5V above ground is logic high, and if your micro sees that level on a pin ou can turn on a light. Or if it's an analogue value of 3.2 volts you might think your room is warm enough and decide to turn off your heater.

Sometimes you might here this referred to as an 'absolute value' above ground.

Makes sense.

But sometimes, you don't want to know what the difference is between two points that are different to ground.

Huh?

Closing the KiCAD Gaps

Imports and Persistence

As discussed before, I'd decided to try KiCAD for the first time and the approach I took as to port an existing design, in this case EEVBlog's uCurrent.

To recap, I'd produce a schematic that still needed it's annotation and part values updated, and I'd also imported the Altium PCB files into KiCAD, with an Altium to P-CAD conversion as an intermediate step.