Arduino cloning a IR signal
If you salvage an IR receiver from existing equipment, make sure you determine what the pinout is. They have 3 pins, and all permutations of ground, power and output seem to exist. Instead of guessing you might want to buy a receiver of a known type so you can find a datasheet, they should be &lt; $1. My favourite yellybean is tsop34838, but the US seems to prefer other types.

Also make sure you know the operating voltage. 5V types won't work well belove 4.5V or so. I don't know whether 3.3V-only types exist, 3-5V types do exist (I prefer those).

The output of such receivers is an open-collector, the types I know have a weak internal pullup.

If you connect the receiver correctly and put a LED + 100 Ohm resistor (LED in the correct direction) from power to output, you should get the LED to light light up when you point a suitable IR source at the receiver.



Note that the above pinout is for a receiver I happen to use, yours may or may not be the same.