On 20th November 2009, I embarked on a project to build a universal IR control device based on a mini-PC platform running Linux.
The project suffered a number of ups and downs, a pause of a year whilst work commitments took over and eventual frustration with the continual stability problems of the IR hardware I was using. Eventually resulting in a total loss of enthusiasm and work stopping on the project
Fast forward to 2012, and I was given a Raspberry Pi low cost development platform. This immeidately brought to mind my the original Elmo project and after some experimentation, the discovery of the GPIO pins meant the device looked custom made for what I needed. I decided to resurrect the Elmo project as Elmo2, using the RPi platform.
After some hunting, some basic GPIO libraries were found and I got some results from connecting an IR receiver to the GPIO pins. Some more tinkering and experimentation - and a new receiver - and I could get data from remote controls, but the consistency of data was poor. The IR really needed a driver-level solution and from my previous experience that meant LIRC
Towards the end of November 2012, whilst looking at this, it became apparent that LIRC support had been added to the RPi, and so I experimented with getting this working. Eventually, after much anguish, at the start of December 2012 I managed to get LIRC operational on the RPi and so decided it was work trying to get Elmo running again on the new hardware. This blog contains the technical details of this and is intended as a reference point for anything and everything to do with the project.
aFj December 2012