Soldering IR transmitter to esp12 to control minisplit

ESPHome
1

Hi everyone, I hope that’s the right place to ask for help.

I have a few of those to control my minisplits (Ductless HVAC Wi-Fi Module - CloudFree), they are working really well except a couple features are via IR only.

I ordered an IR transmitter (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806224860317.html) that I soldered to the esp12 board so I can control those IR only features.

ESP – IR transmitter
---------
GPIO05  –   DAT
5V      –   VCC
GND     –   GND

PXL_20240625_213131111
PXL_20240625_2131311112268×4032 254 KB

PXL_20240625_213136452
PXL_20240625_2131364522268×4032 213 KB

In my esphome config, I have something like that:

remote_transmitter:
  pin: GPIO05                      
  carrier_duty_percent: 50%        # 50% for IR LED, 100% for direct connect to TSOP IR receiver output.

# UART settings for Midea dongle (required)
uart:
  tx_pin: 1         # hardware dependant
  rx_pin: 3         # hardware dependant
  baud_rate: 9600

button:
  - platform: template
    name: Display Toggle
    icon: mdi:theme-light-dark
    on_press:
      midea_ac.display_toggle:

I plugged in the USB before updateing the firmware, everything was working (except the IR feature of course). After updating the firmware via OTA, the board became totally unresponsive (can’t connect over wifi, over via USB on my mac but that might be a different issue).

My questions to you all are:

  • am I doing anything wrong or missing something obvious? should this work on paper at least?
  • do I need any pull up or pull down resistors to connect my IR transmitter to my esp12?

I am trying to figure out if my issue is with the esphome config or with the hardware/soldering.

Thank you all for helping!

2

I would inspect soldering and wiring first. That small piece of yaml doesn’t give any info. What you wrote looks correct.

3

Any idea with what I’ve done wrong? I am wondering if the 5v is the issue but I am really out of my league here.

4

Well, I can observe from photo that this board has transistor circuit. I would consider it superior to major part of ir emitter modules around… 5V shouldn’t be any problem. Of course I don’t know if they Fu…d up something on that module. But inspect your job first.

5

Well I tried with a brand new esp12, IR transmitter and jumper wires and it worked this time around with the same esphome config. Not sure what happened with the other one but it appears to be dead now.

Thanks for replying!

6

For my curiosity and also for others interested, how long distance you get from that module?

7

hey! At least 1m away easily but I didn’t try any farther. I shoved the esp and the IR transmitter in my minisplit unit and it’s working really well