Troublesome remote control HPM XL400ESD and USB-UIRT

[svinx <mat...@gm...>]

Hello all.

I am hoping to get some help in configuring a particularly difficult remote
control I have. This remote does not appear to be in the lirc remote
database. I am going to put as much information here as I can think of to
help figure this out.
I have configured a handful of remote controls already without problems, but
this one appears to be a bit different from the conventional remote. It is
used to toggle and dim ceiling lights via the wall switch. (HPM part number
XL400ESD). The remote has only one button, tapping it toggles the light
on/off and holding it down will dim the light up or down.
My transceiver is a USB-UIRT which has worked flawlessly with other remotes,
in both detecting and reproducing IR signals, so I am confident the problem
is not the device nor drivers.
I am using the latest lirc 0.8.6.
when I run irrecord, this is what I get:

<snip>

Now start pressing buttons on your remote control.

It is very important that you press many different buttons and hold them
down for approximately one second. Each button should generate at least one
dot but in no case more than ten dots of output.
Don't stop pressing buttons until two lines of dots (2x80) have been
generated.

Press RETURN now to start recording.
................
./irrecord: could not find gap.  

</snip>

Note that the dots above are the result of at least 2 full minutes of
pressing the only button on the remote. I have tried this various ways each
time, both holding the button down for a full second each time for the
entire session, or pressing the button rapidly for the full session, or a
combination thereof, each time the dots appear almost at random - sometimes
at the end of a button press, sometimes at the start. I guess the point is
that it detects IR signals but not in the way it would expect.

This then lead me to try mode2. These are the results I get:

<snip>

# mode2 -d /dev/ttyUSB0
mode2: uirt2_raw: checksum error
mode2: uirt2_raw: UIRT version 0905 ok
space 412100
pulse 500
space 3300
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 400
space 3650
pulse 400
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700
pulse 350
space 3700

<2nd press>

space 2946500
pulse 550
space 3250
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3550
pulse 500
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3550
pulse 500
space 3550
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3550
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3550
pulse 450
space 3600
pulse 450
space 3550
pulse 450
space 3600



</snip>

Note that with each button press, the first 'space' appears to be completely
different to the following ones. Pulses tend to vary between 250-500 and
spaces tend to vary between 3550-3800
Actually.. only just noticing this, it would appear that pulse & space
together almost always add up to 4050, despite their individual varying
lengths.

I tried toying with a 'raw code' entered into my lircd.conf file, however
this did not work when i re-transmitted the code. There was no error, I
guess the code was just wrong. I am still quite a novice with this sort of
thing. This is the code I tried:

<snip>

begin remote

  name  bdr-longshot1
  flags RAW_CODES|CONST_LENGTH
  bits           12
  eps            30
  aeps          100

  one             0     0
  zero            0     0
  pre_data_bits   0
  post_data_bits  0

   gap 3600


      begin raw_codes
            name 1
                   450
      end raw_codes

end remote

</snip>

Since I have the output of 'mode2', surely its just a matter of entering the
correct raw codes into my /etc/lirc/lircd.conf file? If not, is there some
expert out there who knows what I need to do to get this to work? I would
prefer having the capability to both tap the button aswell as 'holding down
the button' (probably using SEND_START and SEND_STOP) to dim up and down,
but I would settle for just the tap capability.

I don't know if this helps, but on searching for the HPM part code XL400ESD
I found some others having issues analyzying the output of this remote
control for use with a logitech harmony remote. It appears possible with
some tweaking, the last post suggests that the problem is capturing the
spacing when lifting your finger off the button.
link here:
http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Remotes-Programming/Harmony-785-and-HPM-XL400ESD-Remote-Control-Light-Dimmer/m-p/314850#M27867

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