“With great power comes great responsibility…”
The TV-b-Gone is a simple project for anyone with basic electronic soldering skills (and a soldering iron suitable for electronic work … NOT a soldering gun). Running off two AA batteries (included!!!), it’s a small electronic device which transmits a lot of infra-red power codes. Enough, in fact, to switch off virtually any model of TV you might encounter! This will either make you into a super-villain or a super-hero. Please, use your new-found power to improve society rather than just annoying people!
We are now stocking our own kits, as pictured above. With hardware and software developed in-house at MakerMobile, our kits feature key improvements over Version 1 kits (as sold by Adafruit):
Hardware upgrades include:
- The button and LED are now in ergonomically sound positions, making the unit easier to hold and operate.
- The PCB track width has been increased to better tolerate non-expert soldering
- All component positions are now clearly labelled
- The battery terminals are clearly identified as B+ and B-
- The programming header has been removed as programming the chip in-circuit would very likely damage the IR LEDs
Software upgrades include:
- Doesn’t transmit hundreds of unnecessary codes, wasting battery power - just the ones you need!
- The code order has been optimized with all common codes transmitted early in the sequence
- The gap between codes has been reduced. Combined with the previous point, this translates to much shorter wait times.
- While transmitting, the indicator LED glows steadily rather than flashing (a behaviour that drew unwanted attention). It flashes under certain conditions only (e.g. 3 long flashes for a low battery warning)
- Version 2 has multiple operating modes.
The Version 2 User Guide is here
The RISC edition User Guide is here. The RISC edition is our new standard kit and maintains the fantastic price point of CAD$25 including batteries!
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Hi,
Is there a firmware hex download available for version 2 of the TV-B-Gone?
Thanks.
Indeed there is. You will find it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/tvbgone/
Please note that there is a very minor hardware mod required to run v2 s/w on v1 hardware. Check out the image (also on sourceforge) to see what’s involved. It will take you all of two minutes.
Enjoy!!
Thank you for the quick reply!
Ehh, I won’t need to do any modifications, I’m probably going to build it from scratch. Thanks again 😀
Good plan. Have a look at this one …
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=35575&p=175895
Does this contain all of the codes for the US/Asia & UK/EU databases? Also, can it handle 3 AA batteries for increased range like the adafruit v1.2 can? I really like being able to reprogram easier and am thinking about getting one of these. Thanks for your replies!
Hi Trent,
Our standard version contains the US database only. The reason for not yet including the EU dataset in the standard build is that I have not had an opportunity to optimize the transmission order as I have for the US codes. However, you can download an alternative firmware from sourceforge.net/projects/tvbgone which does contain the EU codes as well. Note that in our version 2 hardware, selection of the secondary region is achieved by holding down the pushbutton while you insert the battery. We think this is a better and more flexible system than Adafruit’s.
We have made a lot of improvements to the TV-b-gone hardware and software that make V2 a big step up in terms of usability and efficiency. You can use three batteries but you will make the project significantly larger and I don’t think you will see much difference in range. The LED current has been optimized and is approx 650mA per emitter on fresh AA’s. Going higher may produce a slight improvement in range but might also shorten the life of the emitters. Bear in mind that the range is already stupendous (think: back of a store on the other side of the street). Please let us know if you have any more questions!