So, why not just use a remote to turn it back off and maybe add some other things like Reading Light control, Mood Lighting?
Interesting !!
Having the above in mind I thought of building my own Room Automation and Mood Lighting controller and for this time make it look good and āno mess visibleā. I had bought some nice overpriced project enclosures a while back and the bigger one of them would be perfect for the project.
So, the plan was :
Use the old Sony Remote and with it try simply turn ON/OFF some relays for the light sockets and also dabble with a RGB LED strip to give the room a different tint at night. The system should be able to tell if a wrong action has been taken by itself. Above all it should look good (on the wall).
For the recipe, the main ingredient is MSP430 as I was able to get it in a desired TSSOP package from TI itself (The local sellers donāt seem to like SMDs), Its easy to play with thanks to Energia and best of all ā Low Power .
I chose to use MSP430G2553 as i already had the chip in DIP to prototype with.
For driving the relays and the RGB LED strip ( a small part of the bigger strip with actually just 12 LEDs ) , I used ULN2803 , the octa darlington chip. And Yes ! I didnt use opto isolation for the relays.
For demodulating the 38kHz IR Pulse train, I used a locally available TSOP1738 IR Receiver and for regulating power to the MSP430 I used LP2950-3.3V, a TO92 packaged 100mA LDO .
Next, i needed some LEDs to tell which load is ON/OFF and a DC jack to mate the final module with my wall wart.
Thatās pretty much the circuit part. Once, i had all the components on my table. I designed a small PCB to fit the box and house all the components and a separate Relay board for the Sockets ! Next after Toner Transfer and some etching in my OpenAgitator I got this sparkling PCB .
For more detail: RoomMote- Control the color and sockets of your Room using a Remote, MSP430 and Energia
