I ship all orders on Monday and Thursday mornings and I will send you a confirming email for each order. At the present time I can only ship to the 48 contiguous United States. Note: There is no minimum order, but in order to provide parts for as many people as possible, there is a maximum order of $100. In addition, no more than 10 of any one item may be ordered at one time. Orders that exceed those limits will be automatically refunded.
The IR Multi-Board
A Flexible Learning Tool for Infrared Explorations: $3.25 each (Bare Board)
In February 2009, version 2 of the IRMB was released. The only difference from version 1 is the inclusion of space on the top of the board for the 1N4148 diode (see the Assembly Instructions for details).
The IRMB can be assembled in either of two configurations: horizontal or vertical. The following photos show (in order) a bare IRMB(v1), a bare IRMB(v2), a fully-assembled "horizontal" IRMB(v1) and a fully-assembled "vertical" IRMB(v1). Both assembled versions can be either directly inserted into a breadboard or connected at a distance using a simple 10-pin ribbon cable. The horizontal version is easier to assemble than the vertical version. Therefore, if you are interested in the IRMB I would suggest that you study the details presented on the "Assembly Instructions" page before you decide which version to construct.
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| Bare IRMB(v1) | Bare IRMB(v2) | Horizontal IRMB(v1) | Vertical IRMB(v1) |
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The black plastic that you see surrounding the IR LED in the above photos is heat-shring tubing used to shield the IR-LED. It's only necessary if you intend to use the IRMB in an "echo" application (i.e., obstacle detection involving both the transmission of IR signals and the reception of IR echos in the same application). If you don't have any on hand, an assortment of sizes should be readily available at Radio Shack (part #278-1627).
The IRMB is designed to be a complete platform for experimenting with PICAXE IR capablilities. It contains all the necessary circuitry to implement the full range of PICAXE IR functions. When a specific IR application has been fully developed and completely debugged, you can either simply leave the IRMB in place in the final project or replace it with only the circuitry required for your application and save the IRMB for the development of your next project.
I originally designed the IR Multi-Board in conjunction with a three-part PICAXE Primer column presented in Nuts & Volts magazine (October 2008, December 2008 and February 2009). If you are interested in the power and simplicity of PICAXE programming, you may want to subscribe to Nuts & Volts as we develop additional PICAXE-based projects in future installments of the Primer.