Arduino communication in wireless IR system - arduino

Question

I have two Arduinos that I want to put in a wireless system to relay an IR code from a hand held remote in one room of the house, to a settop box located in another room. One Arduino has an IR decoder which decodes the key from a hand held remote, and sends it to the other Arduino parked in front of the box with an IR emitter. The system, in parts, works fine. When I get the code from the detector (to my PC) and send it manually (from my PC) to the emitting Arduino, it controls the box properly. But when I try to send the code wirelessly directly between the Arduinos, it doesn't work quite right. The commands do not appear to be relayed correctly and the emitting Arduino can't control the bx.
Here is what the decoding Arduino code looks like. "myNumber" holds the 4 byte key:
myNumber.UL = results->value;
Serial.write(&myNumber.B,4);
When the decoder detects the IR pattern, it posts the following to the Serial port whether I use the emitter or depress the on/off key on the remote. The key in question is 61A0F00F (power on/off):
Hex Field ASCII
0000 0F F0 A0 61 ...a
The decoder puts out this same response when I direct the actual remote towards the detector, or when I am driving my emitter with the code 61A0F00F. So it can't tell the difference between the actual remote and the Arduino-driven emitter. The problem is that this output is not understood correctly by the Arduino on the emitting end of the system.
Here is what the emitting code looks like:
void loop() {
int x = 0;
while (x < 4) {
if (Serial.available()) myNumber.B[x++] = Serial.read();
}
Serial.print(myNumber.UL, HEX);
if (x==3) irsend.sendNEC(myNumber.UL, 32); //drive IR emitter with NEC code
delay(10000);
And the serial output looks like this:
HEX field ASCII Field
0000 36 31 41 30 46 30 30 46 61A0F00F
When I put this hex code in manually, i.e. via CoolTerm, inverted (so 0FF0A061) the settop box responds (by turning on). When I link the Arduinos wirelessly, it does not.
Can anyone see what is wrong with the communication above? The numbers in the hex fields don't look quite right, the hex field from the decoder does look like hex, but the hex field from the emitter looks like ASCII? So is the emitter expecting an ASCII number but getting hex instead? I would have thought that the Serial.read and Serial. write would work the same way.
This is highly frustrating, as it appears that the system almost, almost works, BUT NOT QUITE!!
Any help/insight would be appreciated.

Answer 1

First a disclaimer: I haven't coded my arduino for several years.
At first glance it would appear you are being bitten by a conversion bug. I see a lot of conversions from byte to long etc. The key here would be to break things down to their simplest level and verify each level works.
First off I would verify the number of bytes being sent by checking the return value from Serial.write is indeed 4. Something as simple as flashing an led if Serial.write returns 4.
On the receiving end I think I would use ReadBytesUntil as this seems to be designed to do what you want and builds in some error checking (time outs and only 4 bytes).
I hope this helps. If not follow the golden rule: when in doubt - post more code!

Answer 2

Hope the late response helps.
The output data from the emitting end is correct. In your case, myNumber.UL = 0x61A0F00F. When executing the code "Serial.print(myNumber.UL, HEX);", the print class actually sent out the char sequence as '6''1''A''0''F''0''0''F'. So in your serial monitor the ACII data is "61A0F00F", and the corresponding HEX data is "36 31 41 30 46 30 30 46". You are confused about transferring data via text and binary format.
The problem of your code is at line "if (x==3) irsend.sendNEC(myNumber.UL, 32);". After receiving the four bytes data, the x is 4 other than 3. Changing the condition x==3 to be x==4 can fix your issue.