Wireless foot switch

[michael_krell]

Does anyone have experience building with wireless signal transmission? I had an idea recently for building a wireless footswitch for my Fender Deville. I would like to Mic my amp from another room during church performances and still be able to switch my amp channels without running 100 feet of wires.

[Ripthorn]

I know that IR modules are relatively easy to work with, but if your amp is in another room, you need some sort of UHF of VHF type transceiver and I have no experience with those, but they seem more complicated.

[David]

Do you have line of sight to the amp?  if so, you could consider infrared pulses, like on a TV remote.

[R.G.]

There are a number of wireless RF send/receive modules that can do what you want. They're in the $30 range for a pair last time I looked.

If you're a good hacker, you might be able to convert a garage door opener to do the job. They're RF, work for about 100 feet, and end up activating a relay, which is a good way to interface to the amp.

[drewl]

I used to work for a place that made garage door openers, so I worked on all the transmitters and recievers and stuff and actually made remote light fixtures you'd turn on as you pull up the driveway etc.
Some of the boards were recievers that would fire relays which would do what you want.

[michael_krell]

Wow, some awesome ideas. What do you think most inexpensive option would be?

[drewl]

Probably one of those gizmos that turns things on and off in your home with a remote.
You'll obviously have to mod it, changing the ac plug to some type of footswitch.

[David]

I used to work for a place that made garage door openers, so I worked on all the transmitters and recievers and stuff and actually made remote light fixtures you'd turn on as you pull up the driveway etc.
Some of the boards were recievers that would fire relays which would do what you want.

Actually, this is a really good idea!  Drewl is referring to X-10 protocol.  If I'm not mistaken, though, a computer is involved in the process somewhere.

[scratch]

I've got lots of X-10 mdls all over the house (Radio Shack resells these as Plug'n'Power)

the  wireless switches are rocker type (rock up for on, rock down for off) you might be able to rebox this and replace the rocker with a pair of momentary contact footswitches. There is also a wireless 'transceiver' that will activate an appliance, you could either drive a 110V relay (probably hard to find and more expensive) to activate the channel, or use an AC adapter to drive a DC relay?

the theoretical range on the wireless switches is 100' but in practise, I've found it difficult to go from end of the house to the other, barely 50'.

[tranceracer]

Interesting topic, I'm currently working with wireless remotes too!
I ordered this kit, in the process of building a multi-channel remote switcher to control multiple cameras:

http://www.hobbyengineering.com/H1743.html

I'm designing and going to try and also build a remote effects box switcher using this setup.

I've also ordered this wireless kit from QKits:
I got it to work but the range is limited and I blew something out because in fiddling with the batteries I reversed the polarity on the transmitter and it doesn't work now. 
This is a very interesting ckt! it doesn't use a crystal or oscilator, I'm thinking it uses frequencies generated from the feedback of the transistors and fine tuned with the trimmer cap.

http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/FK436

I've researched some threads that hack a cheap doorbell like this one:


http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1286103&cp=&sr=1&kw=wireless&origkw=wireless&parentPage=search&searchId=35168998753

or something from here:
http://www.acehardware.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=wireless&origkw=wireless&sr=1

Cheaper ones can be found here:
http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.1001~search.doorbell

Good luck!   

(if anyone's interested in the geeky details of what I'm doing with these remotes let me know & I'll post in the Lounge)