I've got a strip of those generic Chinese LEDs, and Im trying to replace the IR sensor with a direct link to the Arduino. I recorded all the codes with IRremote and soldered some wires where the sensor used to be, but when I try and send the codes back over the new link nothing happens. I've just got ground to ground, V+ to V+ and the input to IRremote's send pin. Any idea how to fix this or am I going about it all wrong?
Going about it all wrong. The receiving diode has internal circuitry to decode the modulation that you've removed from the picture.
Ah, I was worried about that. Is there a proper way to send the codes over wire? I could always just put everything back together and get an IR LED for the Arduino, but that seems a little superfluous.
If you've bypassed the demodulator in the receiver then you need to remove the modulation from the send pin.
I'm guessing you'd need to hack the IR library to remove the PWM stuff and re-define the Mark and Space functions to toggle a pin, or just bit-bang the raw data to a pin. And... not forgetting that a typical IR receiver is active LOW.
Conclusion: Buy an IR LED.
And here I was thinking I was being clever using the controller it came with. You've given me a lot of good stuff to Google, so Ill see if anyone's tried it any of those ways, but Ill probably just run out and get some MOSFETs, ditch the controller and rig it up like in the Adafruit tutorial, seeings how this controller only does 15 colours anyway.
Thanks all!
Since you are running a microcontroller, there is zero reason to use any type of controller in between.
You can do so much more with code. You only restrict yourself by trying to use the unnecessary part.
Yeah, though Im not planning anything fancy, so having more than 15 colours wasn't worth further ruining my knee on the long, long walk to the only store in town that sells hobby electronics. On the bright side, I've got a huge shopping list of other goodies, so Ill be leaving the store with a huge Santa sack of fun stuff next time I go.