Is the PAC capable of serial control of a head unit? And how easy is it to program yourself, what is required?

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by serial control, but if you mean a hardwire connection, it's strictly an IR solution.

Programming is a breeze. This will be from memory. You press the reset button and an LED lights up. Press and hold the button on your car until a second LED lights up. Let go of the button, and press the remote's corresponding button until the second LED goes off (or blinks, or whatever). Repeat until each button has been programmed. I think you have 10 seconds between programming each button, so after 10 secs of no keypresses it's programmed and ready to go.

 

Dan, isn't a typical computer IR port a variation on a serial port? I know my laptop's IR port competes with a serial port for resources.

 

Ideally, I'd have something MUCH more complex than a simple IR-Blaster.

The headunit that just came in is the Empeg/Rio Car. Its got a serial control via Terminal Emulation. So i can hit 'p' for play and 's' for stop and things. I wonder if anything exists that I can program to do this. hmm..

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Barry WY Silver/Black '01
[B]Dan, isn't a typical computer IR port a variation on a serial port?

 

If you've got a unit that can accept serial commands, adapting it to work with your car's dash buttons should be a snap... if you're electronics-savvy. A little PIC microcontroller (or really any microcontroller) will do the job quite nicely. Get one with on-chip EEPROM and SPI or RS-232, and enough data lines to scan for button presses, and you've got a one-chip solution. If you're clever you may even be able to just code up an Altera or Xilinx PLD.

- Warren

 

The PICs are quite fun to play with, and they're powerful enough to do some real serious work. Although for our application I think an A/D converter is higher on the want list than extra inputs...a moot point, really, since even the lowest chip with A/D has enough data lines.

 

If it were me, I'd just pick up an old Palm V from eBay for ~$50, and write a simple app that sends serial commands from key presses... It could be made to look pretty cool too!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by drogers
[B]If it were me, I'd just pick up an old Palm V from eBay for ~$50, and write a simple app that sends serial commands from key presses...