hi guys, i need some help with an infrared project im trying to do. im looking to build a prop for a local laser tag arena that works off of infrared diodes. i need to create something that pulses the signal every 5 seconds or so. i have an IR grenade they use i was hoping to get some information out of, i downloaded a sound card oscilloscope and took a reading from the two leads of one of the IR diodes (two dots near the green arrow are the solder points for the diode on the other side.) this is what i got out of it. i dont know what it really know what it means but im sure i need it. this is a link to the video i took. - YouTube you can se in the video that it flashes many times a second, how many times, i dont know exactly.
anyway, id like to know what the best way of recreating this signal is? i didnt know it at the time but apparently theres as many different protocols for ir as there is devices that use it. so, if anyone can tell me what the first step might be that would be amazing, i thought maybe it would be as simple as figuring out the frequency and just telling the arduino to pulse the ir dioed at that rate, but i think i might be wrong. no? anyone?
you can se in the video that it flashes many times a second, how many times, i dont know exactly.
I vote for "180", because I see 9 flashes in 50mS on your scope trace.
There's some code in the Playground for generating audio tones. I'd suggest modifying it to generate an output that's on for 1000 microseconds, and off for 4500. That's probably close enough. And you can use the data you've already captured to see whether it matches.
Thanks Ran, I'm not exactly sure where to find the code or how to use it but its something ill dive into tonight. you cant really tell in the picture i posted but there are 9 flashes in 5.0 ms not 50 so that's going to change the value quite a bit id wager
It's likely that it modulates as 40kHz like most IR remotes. If you can configure your scope to expect a 40kHz carrier wave you should be able to see the pulse train that is used for the grenade (the series of 1s and 0s) which you can then recreate.
good deal, ill try that as well when i get home. its a trial version of the scope so ill cross my fingers that it lets me do anything like that.
thanks
i was hoping to get some information out of, i downloaded a sound card oscilloscope and took a reading from the two leads of one of the IR diodes (two dots near the green arrow are the solder points for the diode on the other side.) this is what i got out of it. 
i dont know what it really know what it means but im sure i need it. this is a link to the video i took. - YouTube you can se in the video that it flashes many times a second, how many times, i dont know exactly.