What is Actisys200L?

The Actisys200L is an IRBlaster. I couldn't get the instructions for a generic IRBlaster to work. I got the initial information from www.iwamble.net and have added my own notes to hopefully make installation easier. The instructions here are very detailed so you SHOULDN'T have a problem, if you do and hose your system..well you know..

One last note. I had to change the remote address on my dishbox to 9 so it will understand the IRCodes from the Actisys: (You will only need to do this once and the dishbox should remember it forever).

On Satellite Receivier Remote:
Set echostar receiver to remote address 9
1. Press sysinfo button to get sysinfo
2 hold down SAT button till all top light up
3 press 9 then record  button

UPDATE NOTE (As of R5F27):

I have modified the instructions to work with R5F27. Because of the changes in knoppmyth the auto-install script that I originally created was constantly outdated. I now have detailed step by step instructions (INSTALL.txt). Download the actisys-install_v4.tgz from my ftp site (The elgordo mirror), put it in your /home/mythtv directory. tar zxvf actisys-install_v4.tar.gz, cd actisys-installer, view the README file and then follow instructions from INSTALL.txt.

Old/Detailed Instructions:

These instructions are based on your using the Actisys200L gz file from my elgordo mirror. If you want to go through the full install yourself (and there are alot) you can just follow the instructions on the iwamble website.

One last note. I had to change the remote address on my dishbox to 9 so it will understand the IRCodes from the Actisys:

On Satellite Receivier Remote:
Set echostar receiver to remote address 9
1. Press sysinfo button to get sysinfo
2 hold down SAT button till all top light up
3 press 9 then record  button

Step One: Remove the lirc that is there
First: Make sure that your serial port is setup correctly and permissions for it are set so that everyone can write to it. I only have 1 serial port and I set mine up in the BIOS to run as a COM1, if available set to NORMAL, *not* IrDA or ASKIR.
I did a thorough cleaning/removal of existing lirc and reinstall as per the mythtv docs: hauppauge_remote (no longer there!?-here it is:)

Check to ensure that you don't have other versions of lirc modules and programs on your system:

apt-get remove lirc (or)
apt-get remove lircd (can't remember which one)
su
updatedb
locate lirc_i2c|grep `uname -r`
(Remove whatever it finds)
(Note: Don't need to move man pages, just modules and binaries)
locate lirc_dev|grep `uname -r`
(Remove whatever it finds)
locate irw|grep "/usr"
(Remove whatever it finds)
locate lircd|grep "/usr"
(Remove whatever it finds)
locate irxevent|grep "/usr"
(Remove whatever it finds)

Step 2: Install lirc
Untar lirc:

tar zxvf lirc-0.8.0.tar.gz
cd lirc-0.8.0
./setup.sh
1. (Driver configuration)
5. (TV Card)
g. (Hauppauge TV card)
3. Save and Run configure.
make
make install

As a part of the make install process, LIRC will create the appropriate device for you in /dev. Check to make sure:

ls -l /dev/lirc*
crw-r--r--    1 root     root      61,   0 Sep 18 15:36 /dev/lirc
srw-rw-rw-    1 root     root            0 Sep 18 15:38 /dev/lircd

modprobe the lirc_i2c driver and run the lircd program and check your /var/log/messages and /var/log/lircd files.

modprobe lirc_dev
modprobe lirc_i2c
cat /var/log/messages
cat /var/log/lircd

/var/log/messages will show:

Sep 18 15:38:26 frontend kernel: lirc_i2c: chip found @ 0x18 (Hauppauge IR)
Sep 18 15:38:26 frontend kernel: lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin:sample_rate:
10

/var/log/lircd will show:

Sep 18 15:24:52 frontend lircd 0.8.0: lircd(hauppauge) ready

To check that your remote is working correctly, run the irw program and start pressing buttons. If nothing is happening, you must begin troubleshooting. Things to check:

• Are there batteries in the remote?
  
• Does the remote work? You may be able to see the flashes of IR coming from the remote if you look at it with a video camera.
  
• Is the IR dongle cable plugged in?
  
• Did you remove all of the old LIRC device drivers? Run "updatedb" as root, then "locate lirc_i2c". The only lirc_i2c should be the one in the misc/ directory for your kernel version.
  
• Did you run depmod?
  
• Is your modules.conf setup correctly?
  
• Did you modprobe lirc_i2c?
  
• Did you run lircd?
  
• Do you have an /etc/lircd.conf?
  
• Is /dev/lirc a character mode file, major 61, minor 0? Is it readable by all groups?
  
• If you think you may have had old LIRC device drivers you may need to reboot to ensure that they're totally out of the system. Try running modprobe -r lirc_i2c as root first, then modprobe lirc_i2c and try again.
  
• What path does modinfo lirc_i2c and modinfo lirc_dev show? It should be in /lib/modules/{your kernel version}/misc/
  

Assuming that irw is showing keypresses, you can continue:

Step 3: Remove Default IRBlaster
(As root)

rm /etc/rc5.d/S20irblaster
vi /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh
Press Insert key and page down to very bottom and add
modprobe lirc_dev
modprobe lirc_i2c
Press Escape key then : then wq! (Enter)

mv /etc/init.d/lirc lirc-orig
vi /etc/init.d/lirc
Press insert key and add just this line:
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/local/sbin/lircd < /dev/null
Press Escape key and then : and then wq! (enter)
chmod a+rwx lirc
chmod a+rw /dev/lird, /dev/lirc and /dev/lircm

Restart mythfrontend (change back to mythtv user first by typing exit) and your remote should now work. (If not restart the computer so that the new lirc is started).

Step 4: Setup IRBlaster (remoted):
I have already done the worst part. In the Actisys200L gz file is another file, remote-0.8.0.tar.gz. The complicated and time consuming editing of the source code described on www.iwamble.net has already been done. Just untar it and build it.

tar -zxvf remote-0.8.0.tar.gz
cd remote-0.8.0 
./setup.sh
1 Driver configuration
6 IrDA hardware
5 Actisys Act200L SIR driver support 
2 COM1 (0x3f8, 4)    (Or Com2, etc)
3 Save configuration & run configure
make
DO NOT INSTALL YET!

Back up the original lirc tools (as root):%%

cd /usr/local/bin
mkdir orig
cp ircat irexec irpty irrecord irsend irw irxevent mode2 xmode2 orig
cd -  (back to the remote-0.8.0  directory)

Install the blaster tools:
make install

Change new Lirc tool names to remote prefix:
cd /usr/local/bin
mv ircat remote_ircat
mv irexec remote_irexec
mv irpty remote_irpty
mv irrecord remote_irrecord
mv irsend remote_irsend
mv irw remote_irw
mv irxevent remote_irxevent
mv mode2 remote_mode2
mv xmode2 remote_xmode2

Restore the lirc tools:
mv orig/* .
rmdir orig

Step 5: Configure Modules:

 vi /etc/modprobe.conf
Press Insert
add at bottom:
alias char-major-72 remote_sir
options remote_sir irq=4 io=0x3f8
(Your options may be different.  My blaster is on COM1)
Press Escape, then : then wq! (Enter)

Add scripting to start remoted daemon:

vi /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh
Press Insert and add this at bottom:
echo "Starting remoted..."
setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none
/sbin/modprobe remote_sir
/usr/local/sbin/remoted
Press Escape, then : then wq! (Enter)
chmod a+rw /dev/remote 
chmod a+rw /dev/remoted 
chmod a+rw /dev/remotem
chmod a+rw /dev/ttyS0  (Or ttyS1 for COM2)

Step 6: Final configuration
Put in the receiving device's config file. Check http://www.lirc.org/ for remotes.tar.bz2. I just copied the JVC_RAW to /etc/remoted.conf.

 cp JVC_RAW.conf /etc/remoted.conf 

Put the change_channel and channel.pl script in /usr/local/bin

 cp change_channel /usr/local/bin
cp channel.pl /usr/local/bin
chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/change_channel
chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/channel.pl

Reboot and test.

If it's working, you should be able to aim the blaster at the tuner and type change_channel 13 and it'll send 1 and 3 to your tuner. Then setup the tuner in mythtv-setup change channel script to /usr/local/bin/change_channel