Advice wanted - replacement for URC WR7

[mdavej]

Sorry to temporarily derail the OP's thread, but here are a few additional observations of mine:

- Touch is the only RF capable remote of the Xsight family

- Touch is significantly thinner and lighter than Color.

- Color battery life is very short.

- Touch and Color do have small, nearly flush buttons, but tactile cues are good. Transport group has a dip in the middle, Nav group is a different texture with a raised OK, and Num group are all raised.

- I don't use favorites much myself, but you can import Harmony icons on the Touch and Color and have very nice looking favorites lists.

Back on topic, I think the VUR8 is probably the best non-Xsight option for the OP due to price, features and availability. Other backlit JP1 remotes are much more difficult to find.

[vickyg2003]

Make that 10. Darn you, xnappo. You just made be buy yet another remote I don't need. If I don't hide this one from my wife, I'll be in big trouble.

LOL - oh good - I'm not the only one opening boxes of remotes in my car and smuggling them past my wife

JP1 is indeed a sickness.

xnappo

LOL. I not only would sneak them in, I'd quickly stash them away in places the DH would not find them. That went on for my first 10 years of JP1ing. But like a squirrel I would forget where I put them!:oops: Consequently when we moved, we found them all over the place! The "spares" filled up 5 paper boxes by the time they were all collected together. When I say my stack of spare remotes is as tall as I am, I'm not kidding.

No more sneaking for me I just hold my ground. What can I say, the hobby keeps me away from the TV, so he can watch all the sports he wants and I am busy in the JP1 lab playing with my remotes.

[cybrdawg]

So I was agonizing over the decision until I found a new B01 Atlas for $5 shipped. I took it as a sign. I also took a chance on the US-sourced FTDI cable (this picture convinced me, so elegant).

I will report back with my results.

[cybrdawg]

The FTDI cable shipped much faster (next day) than my remote, which finally arrived yesterday. For $5 delivered it's a deal, backlit & almost new (some scuffs on the back), though it is even larger than I expected. The battery door feels a little loose, but overall it seems to be better quality than most of what's in stores.

I had everything set to go offline in RMIR, but I can't get it to recognize the remote. When I try to download from the remote, the adapter cable flashes, but RMIR says "No Remotes Found".

Just to be sure, do I have the pins correct? Looking down at the back of the remote, with rx/tx corresponding to the signals on the cable:

Code: Select all

    JP1.3
nc   gnd  nc   1
rx   tx   rts  2

Or is there something I have to do to 'unlock' the remote? Anything else I might be missing? I am on Windows 8.1 x64 with the latest Java 7 x64. Windows automatically installed the FTDI cable, but I also tried with the drivers from FTDI just in case.

<edit>
Just came across the troubleshooting guide and tools, will give those a try when I get home.

[pH7_jp1]

I replied to a PM from cybrdawg on connections for this FTDI cable, but thought I may as well post the same here, in case it can help someone else. Here are the connections:

Code: Select all

JP1 pin   Color     Function
2         Yellow     RTS
3         Black      GND
4         Green      TX
6         White      RX

Here is a pic of testing this connection before I made anything permanent:
https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... e_id=12477
The top left and top right pins are unconnected. I cut the wire on those two connectors and glued all 6 together to make my connecter, put hot glue on the wires and heat shrink over it all to make it look neat.

Here is a picture of my finished connector:https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... e_id=12478

Don't forget to mark Pin 1 before you cover everything up - I did forget and had to sort it out afterwards.