Guitar Rod of Command

Last update: Sat Jan 10 23:04:54 2026

Summary

Recycle the head of a Wii Guitar Hero guitar (went unused long ago) and recycle it as a multi-purpose living room remote. Why ? Because I have now 2 remotes (TV + VCR) + the small PC under the TV and that makes too much remotes.
As per the PC, I can already drive it with the ardPlayer tokens (an arduino connected to the PC with a RFID token reader). I will reuse that, extend the software and use some 433MHz radio wave modules bought at Seeedstudio years ago and never used IR receptor since the rest of the code is already that (and 'cause the RF module doesn't work). And for the TV and VCR of course the Infrared.

Functions

In the final product

(Send IR) Command via IR the (1) TV and (2) VCR Done!
(Send radio command) Using radio waves command the PC linked to the TV (and talk with an Arduino powered ardPlayer tokens) Dropped -> use IR
(Show current mode) There is 5 buttons on the guitar, must show which is current mode (color led) Done!
Auto-power off Dropped
Powered via a scavenged USB battery Done!
Wake on press button Dropped -> regular on/off switch
Vibrates on mode change or if wants confirmation ("must click twice") Dropped -> Speaks instead
Speach powered ? The color status will not be very helpful because too hard to remember what does what... Done!
- If so : +amp +speaker, if possible and amp with on/off pin or driven by transistor Done!

During development

Learn IR code ? Or make a circuit on the side and upload codes in EEPROM

Modes and buttons

Mode (circle with button 1 green)	Button 2 (red)	Button 3 (yellow)	Button 4 (blue)	Button 5 (orange)	Color
TV	VOL+	VOL-	INPUT		Blue
PC	VOL+	VOL-			White
VCR	PLAY/PAUSE	LIST	LIST UP	LIST DOWN	Green
ROD OF COMMAND	TV ON/OFF	VCR ON/OFF	PC OFF		Red

Schema

Parts

A Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero guitar's head
ATTiny2313 at heart
AquesTalk LSI (a ATmega 328 with a custom firmware)
HT82V739 opamp
IR led for communication, RGB led for the mood and mode
Small speaker
Board : Rapide2313 (eat your own cuisine)
Li-ion battery found in the garbage (a portable USB cellphone charger)
Usual parts ...

Points of interest of the schema

Using a great speech IC (at least for Japanese) AquesTalk LSI
- See and hear http://www.a-quest.com/products/aquestalkpicolsi.html
- Buy (850 JPY = 8 USD) http://akizukidenshi.com/catalog/g/gI-06225/
- Drive it with TWI : set SMOD1 = HIGH (already pulledup) and SMOD0 = LOW
- Super easy and great results!
OpAmp HT82V739 has a on/off pin and few surrounding components to work. Still my favorite. Us the on/off pin to mute the speaker and avoid buzz when speaker is not used.
RGB led with nice mixing color trick : calculate and respect the Voltage forward of each color !
- Explained here http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/48522/what-resistor-to-use-with-this-rgb-led
- In short : put a resistor 1k+ and a led and feed it 5v. Measure the voltage drop at the pins of the led : that's VF for that color. Decide how many amps you want to feed the led and call it I. Your resistor value is in ohm = (VCC - VF) / I

Code

Github : https://github.com/AlanFromJapan/alanarduinotools/tree/master/Attiny2313/GuitarRodOfCommand

Points of interest of the code

Implementation of I2C TWI on ATtiny2313 (found here http://www.instructables.com/id/I2C_Bus_for_ATtiny_and_ATmega/ Thanks for sharing)
- Used to drive the Speech generator AquesTalk LSI 3011 from the ATtiny2313
- Works just fine, timed for a 1MHz speed
IR implementation of the Sharp protocol
- Based on the IRremote lib for Arduino and the great work done on : http://www.sbprojects.com/knowledge/ir/sharp.php
- Codes for Sharp TV : http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/sharp/GA538WJSA
IR implementation for NEC
- Based on http://openlgtv.org.ru/wiki/index.php/Using_a_generic_microcontroller_board_as_an_LG_service_remote
- Rewrote everything but logic is very close

Pictures

See the picture gallery here : Guitar Rod Of Command Photoroman

Doc

About the RF module

A very good tutorial http://winavr.scienceprog.com/example-avr-projects/running-tx433-and-rx433-rf-modules-with-avr-microcontrollers.html
Wiki of the product itself (I obviously have an older version, less component on my version) http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=433Mhz_RF_link_kit
The same (kind of) product at $parkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10533

All content on this site is shared under the MIT licence (do what u want, don't sue me, hat tip appreciated)
electrogeek.tokyo ~ Formerly known as Kalshagar.wikispaces.com and electrogeek.cc (AlanFromJapan [2009 - 2026])