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DIY Editing Remote control for Panasonic DVD Video Recorders
(A guerrilla remote control to make editing on DMR-E80/E85/E100 just a bit more enjoyable)
The idea works for any other DVD recorders.
Pages: Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Attaching cables to the universal remote circuit board
This is the most crucial step and if we don't do this step properly,
there is no reason to continue.
First, let's have a good look at the remote circuit board. The
Integrated circuit is soldered to the copper layer. Between the two
layers - copper and graphite is isolation. But there are points at
which the graphite layer is joined with the bottom copper. If you look
closely these are visible as small inset circles on the graphite. These
are the best places to attach wires.
Now let's check which contacts we need. I previously list all the
buttons I like to use, now I will locate the contacts for these buttons
on the graphite and locate the inset joint circles as described above.
I will mark these with a marker. Obviously, since the buttons are in a
matrix, many will have common wires so I will then check if I didn't
mark any redundant joints.
At this moment we have to pause and decide how we are going to attach
the wires to the board.
Firs way is to solder the wires to the joints. I must warn you, this
step is only for people who have enough experience with soldering such
fine elements. This is not easy task and if you are not confident or
never done such things, this is not the best time to experiment.
Other, much easier way is to glue the wires there! Yes, there is such
thing like a special conductive silver glue or epoxy. It can be bought
from radio-amateur stores or ordered online. The silver conductive glue
is great invention for this application. Since the contacts on remote
are graphite, the integrated circuit doesn't expect for the buttons to
be 100% perfectly conductive. In fact you may be able to bridge
contacts even with your skin on finger which has quite some
considerable electric resistance.
In both ways we have to remember that we would need to place the rubber
keypad on the board when setting things up to set the remote code, then
we can remove it. This means the wires cannot block any of the numbers
or the device selector on top.
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| Here are the joints between the graphite and copper layer. |
I marked the contacts I need with marker |
Scratching the surface and adding solder to the joint |
Soldering a cable to the joint |
I choose the first method because I am confident I can do it. I spent
my teen years with soldering iron in hand and soldering wires to thin
layer is not the most difficult job I ever did. Again, warning, if you
are not confident soldering, get a glue.
Before soldering I took scalpel and scratched the top of the graphite
from the joints to reveal the bottom copper layer. I took special care
to be sure I am working on joints between layers, not scratching the
isolation on places where these two layers must not touch.
Then I had to put a bit of solder to these joints. This is difficult
and it involves scratching the joint with scalpel so the copper layer
is clean, using extra flux and always clean soldering tip. Never heat
the joint too long. If it doesn't take the solder after few sec, stop,
scratch it again, use flux, clean tip and start again. The goal is to
put a bit of the solder to the joints so in next phase we can quickly
solder wires to them.
I prepared the wires from the PS1 controller cable. They are each
different color, which is very good. I leave enough length, it is
easier to cut later. Take out a very little isolation, use flux and add
solder to the wires. Now we are ready. Quickly heat the wire in the
joint so they get soldered together.
If you are using glue, then all this is much easier. You can actually
simply glue the wires to the graphite layer, the best is in place of
joints, since there is the strongest bond with the board.
When all wires are there, there is one important step - to mechanically
secure the wires to the board. I use for these kind of things hot glue.
This is important because while the wire can have good electrical
contact with the circuit board, such contact is not good mechanically.
It is very easy to break the lines in board when pulling the wires and
believe me there will be a lot of pulling later.
I simply secured the wires with hot glue to the edge of the board.
Now I took a paper and pen and by tracing the remote board I
marked which two wires control which button. You will be happy to have
colored wires!
Before I can go further, I want to be sure I didn't destroyed the remote, so I put batteries in , put the rubber back on top to set the code for Panasonic (My Phillips used 641 code so I had to press-hold learn, press DVD and put the code). Then I took the rubber keyboard off again and tried the device on the E85 by simply touching the two wires I marked. I checked all of them if all works as planned.
In my case all was all right. That means both the soldered joints are
fine and I also marked the wires correctly. It is vital to do this step
at this stage, because it is much harder to locate bugs later.
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| First wire attached. |
All wires are now attached using colored cables |
A detail of the soldered wires |
This is the remote with both LED on wires and a battery box. |
I took out the battery and took out the infrared LED and the red LED
and solder them to a long wires, then solder the wires back to the
board making sure I keep the correct polarity. I simply put mark with
marker on one side of the led contact and same mark on the board. If
you reverse polarity, you will be scratching your head why it doesn't
work.
So this is the most difficult part and it is done, so put it away to safe place
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