Confusion trying to decode IR signals from a Sony universal remote

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi!

This is by no means my first Arduino project, but it is my first attempt at actually trying to get some functional use out of the IR receiver I had lying around.

I'm following the tutorial at Sensor tutorials - IR remote receiver/decoder tutorial

Basically, I'm trying to use my Sony RM-AV3100 integrated remote commander to send commands to my Arduino. At this point the commands are nothing fancy, just turning a few LEDs on and off on my breadboard. The IR receiver I'm using was scrounged from an old Panasonic DVD player. One thing I noticed was that (through trial and a lot of error) the pinout of the receiver module I have is different from the one referenced by Ladyada. Looking directly at the receiver with the pins facing the ground and the bulb of the receiver facing towards you, the pins are: Signal, Vcc, GND. I noticed that the first couple times I tried interfacing with the receiver, I had it connected as per Ladyada's specs, but quickly disconnected it as the receiver module became VERY hot, which might be one of the reasons I'm having a problem.

ANYWAY, getting to the point, I followed the instructions and used the sample sketch to get the codes from the remote (no oscilloscope here!) but I'm noticing some inconsistencies.

This is what I get pressing the same button twice, a few seconds apart:

Received: 

OFF 	ON
17020 usec, 20160 usec
20 usec, 140 usec
6480 usec, 2280 usec
40 usec, 120 usec
6480 usec, 2280 usec
40 usec, 140 usec
2000 usec, 9000 usec
20 usec, 140 usec
2000 usec, 4540 usec
20 usec, 120 usec
6500 usec, 6740 usec
40 usec, 120 usec
10960 usec, 20160 usec
6640 usec, 2280 usec
6660 usec, 2280 usec
2180 usec, 9000 usec
2160 usec, 4540 usec
6640 usec, 6760 usec
11100 usec, 120 usec

Received: 

OFF 	ON
58656 usec, 20160 usec
6640 usec, 2280 usec
6660 usec, 2280 usec
2180 usec, 8980 usec
2180 usec, 4520 usec
6640 usec, 6760 usec
11120 usec, 20160 usec
6640 usec, 2300 usec
6640 usec, 2280 usec
2180 usec, 9000 usec
2160 usec, 4520 usec
6660 usec, 6760 usec
11100 usec, 120 usec

As you can see, the codes are not the same at all. If I modify the program to return values in hex format, I get the similar results; sometimes the value is a consistent value but pressing the button a few more times results in a lot of garbled, seemingly random values.

I have everything wired up according to the schematic on Ladyada's tutorial with two exceptions: the pinouts for the receiver, and I have a 330 ohm resistor between +5v and Vcc on the receiver.

Is it possible that I fried the receiver when I first connected it wrong, or would it simply not return any values at all if that were the case?

Thanks in advance for all the help!

2

I forgot to mention, there definitely seems to be some pattern in the IR codes. For the button pressed in the example I gave above, the first list of values definitely seems to come up more often than any of the other "random" ones.

3

So, looking at the data again I've picked up on two things:

  1. each time the button is pressed, it sends out 2 identical codes back to back, and...

  2. every once in a while (often enough to be a problem), the individual "segments" within each code are separated by small, sub 150 usec ON pulses.

So, in the first of the example code snippets I posted above, there are two identical codes, but the first one has a bunch of 20-40us OFF, 120-140us ON segments that split up the actual code (I'm putting a *** next to the "nonsense" code to make it easier to see):

17020 usec, 20160 usec
20 usec, 140 usec ***
6480 usec, 2280 usec
40 usec, 120 usec ***
6480 usec, 2280 usec
40 usec, 140 usec ***
2000 usec, 9000 usec
20 usec, 140 usec ***
2000 usec, 4540 usec
20 usec, 120 usec ***
6500 usec, 6740 usec
40 usec, 120 usec
10960 usec, 20160 usec
6640 usec, 2280 usec
6660 usec, 2280 usec
2180 usec, 9000 usec
2160 usec, 4540 usec
6640 usec, 6760 usec
11100 usec, 120 usec
4

I have similar results with my USB IR toy, it appears random.
But I have noticed that when you send it back it usually works for controlling the TV!