View single post by slychiu
 Posted: Thursday Jul 30th, 2015 01:15 pm
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slychiu



Joined: Saturday Apr 29th, 2006
Location: Singapore
Posts: 5493
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Operation
Run the infrared learning program by Comfigurator > Tools > Infrared Utility



To start learning IR signals for a new device which is not in the IR code library (in the ifr sub directory), press New... You will be asked for the Brand, Device and Model number as in the screen below;




Press OK to confirm. This defines the filename for the ifr file which is to be generated. You can now start to learn new functions using the remote control.
To add new IR codes for devices currently in the ifr directory click on the arrow to the side of the window and select from the dropdown list of appliances shown.



The above screen example for Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioner shows the learned commands for this device in the bottom screen.


Rename
You can rename the function by selecting it with the cursor and pressing the Rename button.

Remove
You can delete the function by selecting it and pressing the Remove button.

Add
To learn a new infrared code, click on the Add... button



Enter the Function Name for the command, e.g. Play, Stop, On, Off etc.. The UCM Connection field will be taken from Comfigurator's UCM Connection setting i.e. it will show Serial (with its COM port number), USB (with USB serial number) or Network (with the IP address) depending on what kind of UCM is connected.
Click on "Start" to start the capture.
Always use new batteries on the remote control, as this gives the best chance of successfully capturing the signal.



When the screen above appears, point the remote control directly at the IR receiver LEDs U8 and U9 about 5 to 10  cm away. Do not place the remote control too close to the UCM board because the exact  location of infrared transmitting LED of the remote control behind the lens may not be known. Press and release the button on the remote control which is to be learned. Do not keep pressing the button unless it is required, e.g. for dimming lights.
The BUSY1 Red LED should turn on when the UCM is ready to learn an infrared signal.  If the BUSY1 LED is not on, click Back and try again.
If a valid infrared signal is not received within 20 seconds, the screen will time-out.
If the capture is complete, the BUSY2 Red LED will blink, followed by the D12 Red LED (to indicate that the information was sent to Comfigurator) and the following screen will appear.



This shows the waveform of the captured IR code. The numbers on the horizontal scale show the time in milliseconds.

Resolution
The Resolution window on the top right allows you to specify different scales to observe the infrared signal. The selection does not change the signal in any way, just the magnification of the signal on the screen.



Tolerance
The Tolerance window allows you to specify the tolerance which the encoding algorithm uses. The IR signal is encoded in the Comfort ifr format, so that the space required in Comfort's memory is minimized. In encoding the signal using the IR learner and decoding the encoded code in Comfort, there will be differences between the original IR signal and the reconstructed signal transmitted from Comfort. These differences are in the length of the pulses and the gaps in the captured waveforms as well as the carrier frequency. Specifying a larger tolerance may allow the algorithm to encode the signal more efficiently, resulting in fewer bytes required for the signal. Comfort imposes a limit on the size of the encoded IR signal due to memory limitations. For Comfort II ULTRA firmware the limit is 4096 bytes while for OPTIMUM firmware, the limit is 540 bytes. Specifying a larger tolerance may result in a code which is less than the limit allowed.  However, applying too large a tolerance could result in incorrect encoding of the signal.

Encode
Press the ENCODE button to initiate the encoding process. The screen below shows a typical result;





The number of encoded bytes is shown at the end of the data in the above window. To save the code into the .ifr file, click on the YES button. The encoded data is saved as an ifr file. The file name is automatically generated from the equipment type, manufacturer, and model number which were entered earlier.
Clicking on the No button will return to the previous screen where a different tolerance can be specified.

Crop
The Crop button on the waveform display screen allows you to delete the last part of the signal in order to achieve a code size within the limit. Some IR codes have single or repeated pulses at the end of the signal which may not be needed to achieve the function. The presence of these pulses defeats the algorithm which looks for repetitions of patterns in the signal. If a pattern is repeated in the signal, but followed by some pulses which are part of the pattern, then the entire signal cannot be coded as a repetition. To crop a signal, click on the point in the signal after which the signal is to be cropped. The remaining part of the signal before the cursor will be acted upon by the encoding algorithm.

Save to File
This button saves the waveform in .raw format. This file can then be sent to Cytech Technology (email: support@cytech.biz with full details) for analysis in case of problems with encoding. This does not save the encoded file in the .ifr format
The IFR folder can be found in ProgramData\Cytech\Comfigurator\ifr


After learning the Infrared code, the IR signal can be sent to any Comfort output. See http://www.comfortforums.com/forum126/4395.html

Last edited on Saturday Jun 10th, 2017 06:17 am by slychiu

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