I am planning on purchasing a Harmony 676 remote control. From what I understand, the remote does not come with an IR receiver. I would like to just buy one, but I'm having trouble finding places that have them. Radio shack has the IR stuff for making your own, but I would like a prepackaged deal. Are there any local US retailers that sell premade IR receivers that would work with MythTV?

How difficult is it to build your own receiver? I have soldering experience (modchip installation), but I have never bought circuit board and components. Any advice?

It's really easy. Check out the circuit here:
http://www.lirc.org/receivers.html

I was able to get all the parts from digikey (http://www.digikey.com)
Except for the serial port adapter, I picked one of those up from Fry's Electronics (Radio Shack should have them too). I went with a RJ45 jack one and used a piece of ethernet cable to go between the receiver circuit and the serial port.

So far, mine's still on a breadboard, but the frontend i'm using it for isn't even in a case... It works great, though. the receving angle is real wide, and you can essentially program any remote. If you're looking to buy a homebrew receiver look around for those links on http://www.lirc.org.

Avoid retail receivers. I bought the creative CIMR100 thinking I could program it to work with another remote, but it only works with the (crappy) bundled remote.

I have ordered a IR-receiver module for the serial port here: http://www.zapway.de/e_index1.htm

My plan is to use it with a Harmony 885. Don't know if it will work, but there is a good chance.

From http://www.lirc.org/receivers.html



/FAF

I agree with the ease of building your own reciever....you dont need a circuit board, you can just solder the 5-6 pieces together in a small bundle. I did this as my first soldering project ever...easy and successful.

I mounted my circuit in a small block of wood to give it enough weight to stay where I put it. All pieces from Radio Shack...$10 I would say.

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

It's not difficult making your own, but I chose the easy solution...

www -> order -> wait -> open-package -> connect -> configure -> play

Rather pay $25 and recieve by mail, than all that fuzz..find a store, get the components, solder... before you look around 1-3 hours has passed, if everything goes well.

Just my humble opinion... and yes, I have years of soldering skills. I'm not lazy, just resonable.

No offence.

/FAF

I thought it was fun...

Not only that, but for the cost of less than one pre-made one I have the makings for at least four that I can make myself. I know I'll be making at least one more, and after that I have spare parts. I'm already looking for new electronic projects

I need to add an IR receiver, because I'm moving from pvr-250 to -500 (white box) which doesn't have any IR.

The homebrew serial IR sounds interesting, but I'm wondering about the built-in IR on my motherboard..

My shuttle (SN41G v?) has this 6-pin IR Header, and I've seen the same thing on all my recent motherboards, but have never seen a receiver to plug into it. The manual just says
It looks like possibly I could wire an IR IC directly to that (on pins 3,4,6?).. and see what happens? If anyone has any input, I'd love to hear it

If this works, all the wiring would be internal, and I could just drill a hole to poke the IR led out the front of my system.