Do you know IgorPlug? Back in the old days when computers had RS-232 ports, this was a nice and cheap solution to control the OS and other software with an arbitrary infrared remote control. However, today most PCs do not have these connectors anymore. Fortunately, there is IgorPlug-USB, an IR receiver for USB ports. It uses an 8-bit AVR microcontroller and implements all necessary USB commands in software, as this microcontroller does not support USB natively. In comparison with the RS-232 solution, device drivers are needed in order to communicate with the IgorPlug-USB. Currently, I am using Windows 7 x64, and unfortunately, the original driver that came with IgorPlug-USB does not work with the 64-bit edition of Windows. There are other drivers (this one for example), but they never worked reliably for me. So, I decided to write my own “driver” based on libusb-win32. It is not really a driver, because all the kernel-related stuff is handled by libusb. Therefore, it is very easy to implement and as libusb provides a valid digital signature, it can be used without disabling signature checks etc.
The “driver” is designed as a replacement for IgorUSB.dll, so it can be integrated into each software that supports the original driver, e.g., EventGhost (or, maybe, Girder, but I have never tested it). In order to use it, you have to perform the following steps:
- Download libusb-win32 and install the filter driver for the IgorPlug-USB device.
- Download the new IgorUSB.dll that is used by EventGhost to communicate with the device through libusb-win32.
- Copy IgorUSB.dll to the installation folder of EventGhost.
- Run EventGhost and enjoy!
If you are interested, you can grab the source code and experiment with it. For now, only receiving of IR commands is supported, other functions like setting LEDs are not implemented.
Tags: computer, infrared remote control, software
September 5, 2012 at 7:09 pm |
Thank you very much. It worked nicely.
September 11, 2012 at 3:28 pm |
To clarify step 1): Run inf-wizard.exe
Thanks, now I am using my IgorPlug + XBox-Remote again. Only the Volume-up/down Button on the Remote acts wired and sends different commands each Button-Press-Event.