Arduino TV-B-Gone

Inspiration

We wanted to do a hardware project that would be simple but interesting. In the past, IEEE at ISU had the idea to build this circuit. We decided to build it ourselves and test it out.

What it does

It will turn on or off most TV's. This device runs through hundreds of TV power codes and outputs the frequencies through the IR LED. The idea is that if they run through all of the power codes, eventually one of the codes will activate the TV and the rest of the codes will not effect the TV. This device will handle both North American and European TV power codes.

How we built it

We used a few resources for the design and code for our project. The circuit design and Arduino code that we used was created by Ken Shirriff and posted on his blog. Other bloggers made a few tweaks to the code and eventually it became a popular design for this application.

We made a few tweaks to the original design. For ease of use, we added a switch to toggle between North American and European power codes. We also made the device portable with a 9 Volt battery power supply and power switch.

Challenges we ran into

Testing the circuit was a big challenge. We found out that some TV's aren't compatible with the TV power codes. We also found out that some TV's use different sequences with turning on and turning off the TV. We did a wide range of testing and even went to Walmart to test our circuit.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This is our first Hackathon and we are proud of our finished product. We were also proud of what we learned, especially about Arduino.

What's next for Arduino TV-B-Gone

This product is already commercialized by some hobbyists, so we probably aren't going to get rich. Next we will put our finished product on Perf board for a more permanent design.

Built With

• arduino
• ir-led