Trantec radio microphones
Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:23 pm
Hi everyone
Bit of a different use for IR here.
I'm a theatre sound engineer and own 24 Trantec S5.3 and S5.5 wireless microphones. They have a neat feature where you can get the receiver unit to lock the beltpack transmitter worn by the actor so they can't fiddle with any of the buttons. This locking is done by infrared. I got frustrated having to hold 24 of the things in front of the receivers (which are often stashed under the stage in a pretty inaccessible location) so ages ago I bought myself a sunwave learning remote and taught it the IR codes for lock and unlock.
There's a slight quirk to this though. I own 24 of them, but there are 3 different variants among them depending on their operating frequency (of the RF audio transmission side of things - nothing to do with the infrared). 12 of what we'll call variant 1 (606-614MHz S5.3 model if you're interested), 4 of variant 2 (863-865MHz S5.3 model) and 8 of variant 3 (863-865MHz S5.5 - the posher model with a few more features). Each variant of beltpack requires its' own variant receiver to lock or unlock it, so I always assumed they just had a different IR code for each variant (why they'd do that, i've no idea!).
Anyway, the remote is getting past its' best and I can't find a replacement (bought a few others from ebay and for whatever reason they just won't learn the code successfully) so I thought i'd come up with a more elegant solution. As i've had to teach the remote all 3 pairs of lock/unlock codes for the 3 variants of mics (so, 6 buttons, 3 lock, 3 unlock) I thought it'd be more elegant to use an arduino and just send all 3 lock commands one after the other when a lock button was pressed, and all 3 unlock codes when the unlock button was pressed. 2 buttons to lock and unlock everything - simple, right?
I've got the IR receive code running on my arduino and here is the code I receive (for reference, this is the learning remote that i've been using - doing this at work and bringing the rack of receivers in with me is going to take some explaining! I can try it later with the actual receivers themselves, but the remote functions correctly so I can only assume its' codes are correct and identical to what the receiver is putting out when it sends the commands).
Lock;
732B064A
2FF45DCA
FEAC02E5
Unlock;
732B064A
F40E874F
FEAC02E5
What's really odd is, I get the same codes no matter which variant lock or unlock button I press - the code sent is identical. Bang goes my theory of each variant using different code! Those above codes are exactly as they are printed, including the carriage returns.
Anybody got any clues as to what's going on, or what the difference could be between the variants to make them all only respond to their corresponding variant receiver only? My one and only theory is they're each using a different IR frequency, maybe clocked or referenced from somewhere in the RF circuitry - hence it's different for the different frequency bands. Can't see it being likely though when internally clocked transmitters and receivers are so widely available.
I haven't tried sending the above code yet as I haven't really worked out how to put it in to the IRSendRawDemo sketch to make it work (especially with the carriage returns - i'm guessing I need to send them if the receive code prints them in serial monitor?).
IR isn't my thing - RF is! I'm therefore stabbing in the dark a little bit here. Any help would me much appreciated!
Thanks a lot.
Chris
Bit of a different use for IR here.
I'm a theatre sound engineer and own 24 Trantec S5.3 and S5.5 wireless microphones. They have a neat feature where you can get the receiver unit to lock the beltpack transmitter worn by the actor so they can't fiddle with any of the buttons. This locking is done by infrared. I got frustrated having to hold 24 of the things in front of the receivers (which are often stashed under the stage in a pretty inaccessible location) so ages ago I bought myself a sunwave learning remote and taught it the IR codes for lock and unlock.
There's a slight quirk to this though. I own 24 of them, but there are 3 different variants among them depending on their operating frequency (of the RF audio transmission side of things - nothing to do with the infrared). 12 of what we'll call variant 1 (606-614MHz S5.3 model if you're interested), 4 of variant 2 (863-865MHz S5.3 model) and 8 of variant 3 (863-865MHz S5.5 - the posher model with a few more features). Each variant of beltpack requires its' own variant receiver to lock or unlock it, so I always assumed they just had a different IR code for each variant (why they'd do that, i've no idea!).
Anyway, the remote is getting past its' best and I can't find a replacement (bought a few others from ebay and for whatever reason they just won't learn the code successfully) so I thought i'd come up with a more elegant solution. As i've had to teach the remote all 3 pairs of lock/unlock codes for the 3 variants of mics (so, 6 buttons, 3 lock, 3 unlock) I thought it'd be more elegant to use an arduino and just send all 3 lock commands one after the other when a lock button was pressed, and all 3 unlock codes when the unlock button was pressed. 2 buttons to lock and unlock everything - simple, right?
I've got the IR receive code running on my arduino and here is the code I receive (for reference, this is the learning remote that i've been using - doing this at work and bringing the rack of receivers in with me is going to take some explaining! I can try it later with the actual receivers themselves, but the remote functions correctly so I can only assume its' codes are correct and identical to what the receiver is putting out when it sends the commands).
Lock;
732B064A
2FF45DCA
FEAC02E5
Unlock;
732B064A
F40E874F
FEAC02E5
What's really odd is, I get the same codes no matter which variant lock or unlock button I press - the code sent is identical. Bang goes my theory of each variant using different code! Those above codes are exactly as they are printed, including the carriage returns.
Anybody got any clues as to what's going on, or what the difference could be between the variants to make them all only respond to their corresponding variant receiver only? My one and only theory is they're each using a different IR frequency, maybe clocked or referenced from somewhere in the RF circuitry - hence it's different for the different frequency bands. Can't see it being likely though when internally clocked transmitters and receivers are so widely available.
I haven't tried sending the above code yet as I haven't really worked out how to put it in to the IRSendRawDemo sketch to make it work (especially with the carriage returns - i'm guessing I need to send them if the receive code prints them in serial monitor?).
IR isn't my thing - RF is! I'm therefore stabbing in the dark a little bit here. Any help would me much appreciated!
Thanks a lot.
Chris