Irk Problems With Belkin F8u1500

[uberjoe]

I recently got an IR keyboard that was recommended to me on these forums, as being compatible with my system. I grabbed the irk-belkin from the upgrades feed + all depends,  changed input from multikey to belkin on the taskbar.

I think I set everything up correctly, interface irda1 is up, IRK is on and running, the IR port is VERY close to the keyboard, I've tried restarting opie with the keyboard in place, rebooting.

I'm starting to think maybe the keyboard is broken, or maybe my IR interface. I have no way of testing either. People tell me that the collie and this keyboard work fine together but i've done everything short of waving a dead chicken at it and nothing works

If you have been successful please let me know how you do it.

[MrSquishy]

I assume that you got all the "basic" stuff covered.

There is a battery in it
IRK is set to your model
IRK is turned on

and that all that is going wrong is that nothing is working like it should.

Im using the (older) IRK0.11.1 ipk out of the upgrades feed.
If you are using the "Newer" ipk from the upgrades feed, it is labelled IRK-Belkin

Do you have anyway of testing the IR Keyboard?
The absolute "hackiest" way of seeing if it is spitting out a signal is to push some keys while you record it on a camcorder or webcam.  They will usually pickup the IR.
Or if you have a pair of nightvision goggles lying around, give them a shot too.

Make sure you turn your IR Beaming off, and you should get a process back if you goto a terminal and do

ps -A | grep irattach

Well, you should get 2 processes back, 1 for the grep and one for irattach.


If all else fails.  Wave a dead chicken at it.  A real dead chicken, not just a McNugget.


Let me know if none of this works.

Oh, and if there wasnt a battery in the keyboard, just make up something like the IRK.conf got removed by a malicious genie or something.

[uberjoe]

The webcam didn't pickup anything unusual, but that could mean that my webcam is visible spectrum only. I did think about using night vision goggles, but I don't have any nor do I know anyone with them. Maybe I'll ask the college (employer)  if they have a pair I could check out.

You mentioned that I should turn off IR beaming. How do I do that?

Is there a hardware 'on' switch on the keyboard I shoud know about?

I also noticed in network setup that I have two irda interfaces, irda1 and irda0. Which one should be up and do they need an IP address? Maybe I'm just grapsing at straws at this point.

[MrSquishy]

My irda1 is "up" though not configured

irda0 is down.

If you click on Settings/Launcher and check "Irda" a little applet should popup on the system tray.

This needs to be disabled (Grey)

If it is on, IRK will still toggle to "On" but it wont read anything.


I just grabbed my wife's digital camera, and the IR does indeed show up if you turn the lights off and look at it through the LCD viewfinder.

A digital camera might be easier to get ahold of than NVGs.

I attached the movie of the IR lights functioning at keypresses.
It's Quicktime, so either do the dance, or get Quicktimealternative.

[uberjoe]

Well that confirms it. It's definetly broken. For a proof of concept, I held my z up to the camera and tried to beam a file and it flashed away, as did my tv remote. The keyboard however was totally dark. The buyer said he would replace it for me, so I guess I'll have to wait for another week.  

Thanks for that vid BTW it was quite interesting.

[MrSquishy]

Sorry to hear your keyboard isnt working, but it is nice that you can get it replaced.

Plus im sure on some level it is a relief to know what (!) is wrong.

Did you already confirm the battery works and is in the correct way?
And that all malicious genies have been held back from the keyboard.

[uberjoe]

It was a brand new package of batteries and I tried both of them. Also my three year old son keeps all monsters, genies, and various mythical figures at bay with his light sabre.