JP1 Remotes

Hi All,

With the help of the information in this forum I setup my URC 7960 back in 2016 and all was working fine until I changed by DVD player and wanted to update the remote. After an age of trying to get the drivers and cable working on Windows 10 I finally got Remotemaster downloading and uploading from the remote.

The downloads and uploads are working fine in Remotemaster but unfortunately when I go to use the remote no signal seems to be going from the remote to the devices. The device selection button is working but none of the devices respond. I tried a manufacturer's reset and then uploaded again from remotemaster but still no response from the devices.

When I was setting up the cable and drivers I suspect the cable may have been damaged and might have had a loose connection.

Any thoughts on what might have gone wrong and how to repair?

Here the the location of the files I've uploaded to the Diagnosis area:

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... e_id=25782

Any assistance appreciated.
San-do

One quick test that you can do is to use a digital camera (like the one in your phone) to see if the remote is sending *any* signal, because IR light is visible to digital cameras.

Rob, very clever, and I can confirm that no signal is being sent from the remote. Is it for the scrap heap so?

Depends, are you an electronics hobbyist? I'll leave it to other experts to suggest whether you could have done something to the programming to stop it sending a signal, from a hardware point of view, the only thing that comes to mind is you might have killed the IR-LED, so you could try replacing that.

This probably won't help diagnose anything but curiosity
maybe see what happens if you try learning a signal from another remote
If it at least recognizes the incoming IR then i would think the LED is good

Sorry for the delay in coming back on this one. I've tried learning a signal and the remote works perfectly. I can upload and download from Remotemaster without any issues. The only problem seems to be sending the signal.

Please explain more learning a signal and the remote works perfectly.
does that mean it will send the learned signal or is it not sending that signal either

I take it to mean that the remote will learn the signal, and he can download the memory using RMIR and see the learned signal, but the remote won't actually send any signals. Did I get that right san-do?

Rob, that's correct. The remote can learn the signals and will download to RMIR. The remote will also accept an upload from RMIR but will still not send any signal.

Then my best guess is that this remote has separate sending and receiving IR LEDs, and the sending one probably needs replacing.

I think your next step is to try and disassemble the remote and take a picture of the PCB.

Rob, I've uploaded the photos to the diagnosis area. I had to reduce the file size as the upload wouldn't accept 8, 6 or 5MB files. I don't see any physical damage myself but see what you think.

File Location:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... e_id=25788

thanks.

Take a close look at R35 at the bottom of the remote with a magnifying glass if you have one. It looks likae a bad solder joint also look at C3 and R1
the button layover is covering too much of he circuit
for us to trace a pic with the buttons removed would give a better pic of the circuit

Yeah, could we get a new pic like IMG_2525 only without the backlight sheet covering the PCB. Also, there seems to be a lot of gunk on the PCB, so if you have any electrical contact cleaner, you could try cleaning that off first. These pics all say "reduced", would it be possible to get this new pic without reduction as it allows us to zoom in.

The pics do confirm my earlier assumption that you have 2 IR-LEDs though. If you know how to de-solder and re-solder, you could try swapping them around. If the problem remains the same, the problem is elsewhere (like maybe R35 like HH suggested). If the problem becomes that you can send IR but not learn it, then that would confirm that you have a bad IR LED. At that point, the way you confirm which is which is with a digital camera.

I've uploaded the photo in full size here:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... e_id=25789

Unfortunately I'm not very good a soldering at the best of times, let alone on the scale of the PCB. There is a lot of gunk on the board itself which I'll have a go a cleaning off when I get back home (visiting relatives at the minute) to see it if makes a difference. But, given my skill level I'd be wasting my time trying to replace the IR led.

I picked up a URC 7980 this morning and will try and upload the RMIR file from the URC 7960 (a download from the 7980 has worked with my cable). I'm already encountering a few issues but will post separately on these if I can't resolve them.

Thanks for your help on the URC 7960 to date. It is really appreciated as I quite like the 7960 and it has served us well for the last few years. Using multiple remotes for the last week has reminded me just how useful the 7960 was.

thanks.

Thanks for the new pic, the resolution certainly is much better. However, I'm really looking for a pic of the whole remote. It's my fault, I thought IMG_2525 was the whole remote but I see now that it's only half and there isn't a full pic of the PCB side of the remote, without the backlight sheet in the way, something more like IMG-2521, only the other side.

But this may be a pointless exercise if you're not comfortable soldering.