I have this controller I bought to control my mini split a/c but the range of the ir is just to short to work consistently. Is there something I can put on the front of the controller to boost the signal some. Or would it be better off trying to find a better receiver somehow.

Would it work if I unsoldered one ir on the cielo and hooked a wire in the place of it, then ran the wire to the a/c unit ir and piggy backed it on to that receiver. would that work? any harm in doing that, should I add a diode on the line to keep it one way traffic only?

 

As an experimenter you can try anything you want. I would purchase a few extra units so that your experiments can recover from the inevitable disasters. Who knows you might even find an OTS combination that works better than the one you have.

 

One member had good results by putting a short focus lens in front of Tx. Lens is from a folding pocket magnifier, about 1.5 in. dia. FL 3 in. Try using a red LED to get the spread that you want. I have also used a cone reflector at Rx.