That is Awsome mike there have been a few times that an option like this would have been Awsome. Are you planning on selling these or can you share the circuit
Here is the circuit for anyone interested. It shows a single I/R circuit and could pretty easily be adapted to suit any short range opto requirement - probably up to about 100mm span or more with some careful alignment and shrouding of the TX and RX LEDs. I have included a 5V regulator but it could just as easily be connected to the existing 5V rail (in my application I had 12V close by).
AMENDED: OK, so it was pointed out to me by an esteemed member of the Homepin team that although the circuit worked "in my application" it may not work in some others. So I have modded the output to make it universal using an optocoupler so it now 'should' work in any application. Revised schematic is below:
