Will tinfoil block infra red light? If no, then is there a common household material that will?

why?


.....................

Because they're trying to read my brain waves.:uhoh:

I have a pc with a built in VFD display & Infra red receiver. Trouble is the driver for the infra red doesn't work properly with Vista (surprise surprise) and there's no update in the pipeline, so as a workaround, I've pluggd in a microsoft IR receiver to make the remote control work. This has involved putting a strip of duct tape over the built in IR receiver.

However, the duct tape doesn't seem to stop the infra red signal getting through, so the system receives two inputs simultaneously & that crashes the vfd display. So I want to block the IR receiver from picking up the signal as the MS one works just dandy. :)

Yeah, what Radar says.........please do tell:suspect:

Yes but why?

Electromagnetic radiation in the infrared spectrum is quite a wide range so it does depend on the wavelength/frequency of the waves. You might want to consider the reflective and thermal qualities of tin foil as well for some infrared purposes!!! :}

Cheers

Whirls

Buy a proper bloody keyboard/mouse /whatever wi a good honest lump of wire connecting it to yer puter,dammed new fangled gizmo's,:suspect: one is agin em.:rolleyes:

I'd only trip over it.

try a bit of cardboard taped in place with the duct tape

Water is a good absorber of ir light, put a jug of water in front of it!:ok:

This is the box:
http://i26.tinypic.com/4ruump.jpg
The IR receiver is the little black patch to the right of the diplay.

What frequency does the remote transmit at? I lend mid wave band thermal imagers to our schools liaison people. One thing that freaks the kids out and causes most interest is that at 8 to 12μ Glass is IR opaque and bin bags are transparent. Depending on the type of polymer and the frequency being kicked out then you may find it's IR transparent. Just to be on the safe side what you need is a laminated tinfoil, greaseproof paper, paraffin wax sandwich which should cover the entire spectrum unless they're using graviton waves which is common in the MK 57 interositer shown in the picture. :ok:

Stuff to avoid IR Transparent (http://infrared.als.lbl.gov/IRwindows.html)

Looks like the receiver is behind the same plastic cover as the display, as they are fairly wide angle, it's possible that you are getting reflection/refraction from the uncovered area in front of the display

Err I think it is possible to disable IR kit on yer puter in Bios, Looking through my bios a while back I seem to recal that option.
:)

The standard is IR6 according to the remote. I don't wanna disable the IR via the bios, I just want to stop this particular IR receiver from receiving an input. In the absence of a software fix, I have to use a physical barrier if at all possible. Tinfoil??

fairly simple, duct tape is a woven material and has small holes in it.
So use masking tape instead.
if you are really going for it then try using speed tape (ask an avionics guy)
nothing gets through that!

Have you tried disabling the IR receiver through the control panel?

This is the box

The sensor has a very wide field of view. If you really want to block it off, you could pop the top cover and place the shield closer to the sensor itself. I think it's integrated with the VFD/LCD assembly. (I'm guessing that this is an Antec box using the Soundgraph display module.)

It seems IR can be disabled via iMon Manager: click on Option and at the bottom under ODD Drive there is a check box for the IR Signal called
'Do NOT Process IR Signal'.

Soundgraph appears to have updates that are more recent than the Antec ones.

Aluminium cooking foil does reflect IR signals well, we used to tape a bit to the door of our HiFi stand, so father could get the remote to work it from the other end of the room.

Two strips of tape?

Turn it 180 degrees?

Parapunter,
Duct tape or cardboard are indeed not the answer....
Read Windy Militant's post, he's right.
But tin foil should do, or if you still have doubts, cut out a small piece of alu sheet from, say, a beer can, and tape that in place. That is certainly not IR transparent.