Mounting the IR Receiver on the PineA64 for use with OpenHour Remote

[MarkHaysHarris777]

   

Prior to mounting the VS1838 or HX1838 IR receiver on the PineA64 SBC, it is helpful to mod the receiver; this does require some minimal (but easy) soldering skills.  What is at issue is that the leads on the IR receiver are too thin to make good contact with the female header socket on the PineA64 board (found between the system LED solder pads and the audio jack just to the right of the audio jack looking at the usb port side of the board).

The pic above shows the mod;  the un-modded receiver is in the plastic bag.  I have cut the leads on the receiver and soldered it to three male header pins (these are designed to fit the socket on the PineA64 SoC board. The technique is straight-forward;  tin the leads on both the receiver and the header pins... tack solder the receiver to one header pin (leave them on the row of pins for easier handling).  Then, solder the other two leads, returning to the tack point and re-solder the first lead. Then to finish up, cut the modded IR receiver from the row of header pins.

   

I have placed the modded IR receiver in the PineA64 board socket in the pic above. My board has the system programmable LED soldered in place... the IR receiver plugs into the female socket with the bubble and cross facing outward : pinouts ( OUT,  GND,  VCC).  The IR mod makes for a good electrical fit with the socket.

   

The pic above is the OpenHour learning remote, which works with the IR receiver provided  (VS1838, HX1838). To test the remote you can watch evtest while sending control codes to the IR receiver from the OpenHour remote. Also, if you open a terminal you can see the remote signals as characters typed on the screen. The digits will be one less than displayed... the down arrow is the backspace, and several of the function buttons are alpha characters.  To use the remote with gnu+linux apps it is only necessary to map the codes to functions the way you  might map any media key on a standard keyboard.

edit:  I will be posting the data sheet as soon as I confirm the type and model of the IR receiver as shipped.