Arduino RGB led managed by remote control

Taking advantage of the previous post, we are going to add an IR receiver to the circuit so that we can vary the color and brightness of the led with a remote control of Dealextreme, which is perfect for the project. The controller in question is the SKU: 47019, a very cheap remote control that comes with battery included:

To get the Arduino detected it, will use a TSOP 1738 or similar type infrared receiver (in my case I have a 1736 and works equally although command uses a 38KHz carrier).

The 5W RGB Led (DealExtreme)

This is the scheme:

And this the assembly :

Now we need the IRRemote library, that allows to read multitude of remote control codes. In particular it works perfectly with our remote control (which uses the NEC Protocol).

We must download the library and install it in our Arduino environment.

The code for example would be as follows (to copy the code, double click on it):

/*
*  Control remoto de LED RGB 
*  Ejemplo de como hacer variar el color y el brillo con un led RGB  
*  con un mando a distancia.
*  Se utiliza un receptor de infrarrojos del tipo TSOP1738 
*  Autor: Jose Daniel Herrera
*  Fecha: 28/08/2012
*  http://arduino-guay.blogspot.com.es
*/

#include 

int RECV_PIN = 8;
int R_PIN = 9;
int G_PIN = 6;
int B_PIN = 10;

#define ON                0XFFE01F
#define OFF               0xFF609F
#define BRIGHTNESS_UP     0xFFA05F
#define BRIGHTNESS_DOWN   0xFF20DF
#define FLASH             0xFFF00F
#define STROBE            0xFFE817
#define FADE              0xFFD827
#define SMOOTH            0xFFC837

#define RED               0xFF906F
#define GREEN             0XFF10EF
#define BLUE              0xFF50AF
#define WHITE             0xFFD02F

#define ORANGE            0xFFB04F
#define YELLOW_DARK       0xFFA857
#define YELLOW_MEDIUM     0xFF9867
#define YELLOW_LIGHT      0xFF8877

#define GREEN_LIGHT       0XFF30CF
#define GREEN_BLUE1       0XFF28D7
#define GREEN_BLUE2       0XFF18E7
#define GREEN_BLUE3       0XFF08F7

#define BLUE_RED          0XFF708F
#define PURPLE_DARK       0XFF6897
#define PURPLE_LIGHT      0XFF58A7
#define PINK              0XFF48B7

#define INCREMENTO 10

unsigned long rgb = 0;
byte r,g,b;

IRrecv irrecv(RECV_PIN);

decode_results results;


void setup()
{
  irrecv.enableIRIn(); // Inicializamos el receptor
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(R_PIN, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(G_PIN, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(B_PIN, OUTPUT);   
}


void variar (byte* color, char valor) {
    if (valor > 0) {
        if ( *color + valor <= 255) {
            *color += valor;
        } else {
            *color = 255;
        }
    } else { 
        if (*color + valor >= 0) {
            *color += valor;
        } else {
            *color = 0;
        }
  }
}

void RGB(unsigned long valor) {
   r = valor >> 16; 
   g = (valor >> 8) & 0xFF; 
   b = valor & 0xFF; 
}

void loop() {
  if (irrecv.decode(&results)) {
    if ( results.value != 0xFFFFFFFF) {
      switch (results.value) {
           case BRIGHTNESS_UP : 
               variar (&r, INCREMENTO);
               variar (&g, INCREMENTO);
               variar (&b, INCREMENTO);
               break; 
           case BRIGHTNESS_DOWN : 
               variar (&r, -INCREMENTO);
               variar (&g, -INCREMENTO);
               variar (&b, -INCREMENTO);
               break; 
           case OFF :
               r = g = b = 0;
               break;    
           case RED           : RGB(0x00FF0000); break;
           case GREEN         : RGB(0x0000FF00); break;
           case BLUE          : RGB(0x000000FF); break;
           case WHITE         : RGB(0x00FFFFFF); break;
           case ORANGE        : RGB(0x00FF7F00); break;
           case YELLOW_DARK   : RGB(0x00FFAA00); break;
           case YELLOW_MEDIUM : RGB(0x00FFD400); break;
           case YELLOW_LIGHT  : RGB(0x00FFFF00); break;
           case GREEN_LIGHT   : RGB(0x0000FFAA); break;
           case GREEN_BLUE1   : RGB(0x0000FFFF); break;
           case GREEN_BLUE2   : RGB(0x0000AAFF); break;
           case GREEN_BLUE3   : RGB(0x000055FF); break;
           case BLUE_RED      : RGB(0x00000080); break;
           case PURPLE_DARK   : RGB(0x003F0080); break;
           case PURPLE_LIGHT  : RGB(0x007A00BF); break;
           case PINK          : RGB(0x00FF00FF); break;
      }
      Serial.println(results.value, HEX);
      Serial.println(r,DEC);
      Serial.println(g, DEC);
      Serial.println(b, DEC);
      analogWrite(R_PIN,r);
      analogWrite(G_PIN,g);
      analogWrite(B_PIN,b);
    }
    irrecv.resume(); // Receive the next value
  }
}

Caution!: The IRremote library internally use the TIMER2 of Arduino. This causes outputs 11 and 3 do not work as PWM ( therefore I changed the Green led to output 6). On the other hand there is a newer version of the library IRremote, which recognizes many protocols of IR codes, but apparently after several pulses, the obtained codes seem random...??.Can serve you to support other remote controls or for other projects.

For obtain the constants I used the example that comes with the 'IRrecvDemo' library, which allows display on the console the codes sent by every button on the remote. Same is true if you want to use another different remote control.

A video demo:

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