IR remote/The sender/08. The sender, pin by pin
The sender · 08 of 11

The sender, pin by pin

An infrared LED, a transistor to switch it and one resistor to limit it. The resistor is fixed at 150 Ω, so the one thing you decide about this board's range is which rail its VCC goes to, and 5 V buys about a third more than 3.3 V.

What is on the board

The TK16 from the parts side: a black board with a gold border. Near the top, a small clear block lies flat with a lens in its upper end, two legs bent down to two holes below it. At the top right, a three-legged transistor above two resistors. In the middle, a small LED above a resistor. Two large mounting holes, lonely binary and IR REMOTE SENDER up the left edge, a transmitter icon on the right, and a right-angle header along the bottom labelled GND, VCC, NC and SIGNAL.
The parts side. The clear block is the infrared LED; its lens faces up, away from the board.

An Everlight IR908-7C infrared LED, an S8050 transistor, 150 Ω in series with the LED, 1 kΩ into the transistor's base, and a red LED with its own 1 kΩ. No chip, no oscillator, nothing to set up. It is a switch with an LED behind it.

The IR908-7C is a sidelooker: it shines out of one side of its clear package, not out of the end. On this board its legs are bent so it lies flat with that side facing up, so like the receiver it looks out of the parts side of the board. Point that side at the receiver.

The four pins

The TK16, pin by pin
from the net list
Pin
IR LED from 5 V
24 mA
LED rating
50 mA
Pins to wire
3
SIGNAL is active HIGH: HIGH puts about 2.6 mA into the transistor's base from a 3.3 V pin (4.3 mA from 5 V), the transistor turns on, and both LEDs light. It needs a twentieth of that, so any 3.3 V or 5 V pin drives it with no level shifter.

GND is the square pad and the transistor's emitter. VCC feeds both LEDs through their resistors and nothing else. NC is connected to nothing. SIGNAL goes through 1 kΩ to the transistor's base, and it is active HIGH: HIGH turns the transistor on and both LEDs light. That is the opposite of the receiver, and it is IRremote's default, so nothing needs setting.

Where the current comes from

Your pin does not light the LED. It puts a couple of milliamps into the transistor's base, and the transistor lets VCC push the LED's current through to GND. The transistor needs about a twentieth of what a 3.3 V pin gives it, so a 3.3 V board drives a sender on 5 V with nothing in between.

What the rail decides

One resistor decides your range
R1 = 150 Ω
What VCC is connected to5.0 V
LED current
24 mA
Reach vs 5 V
100 %
Base, 3.3 V pin
2.6 mA
R1 is the only limit, so the current is what is left of VCC after the LED's 1.25 V, divided by 150 Ω: 13 mA from 3.3 V, 24 mA from 5 V. 5 V buys about 38 per cent more range than 3.3 V, for moving one wire. The base needs 0.12 mA and the pin gives 2.6, so a 3.3 V board drives a 5 V-powered sender directly. For scale, the receiver’s 26 m was measured with an LED at 50 mA.

The 150 Ω is fixed and the LED drops about 1.25 V whatever you do, so the current is what is left of VCC divided by 150: about 13 mA from 3.3 V and 24 mA from 5 V. Reach follows the square root of current, so 5 V buys about a third more distance than 3.3 V. It is the biggest thing you can do for range, and it costs one wire.

Both currents are inside the LED's 50 mA continuous rating. Keep VCC at 5 V or below: the resistor is the only limit.

The beam is the narrow one

The IR908-7C's beam is 40° in all, ±20° either side of straight on, against the receiver's ±45°. The receiver looks like the fussy half because it has the chip; in practice the sender is the one you aim. How far, and how wide draws both.

The back of the TK16: a black board with a gold border, lonely binary across the top, the LED's two solder joints, a transmitter icon between two mounting holes, a boxed TK16 IR REMOTE SENDER, four header pads with the square one on the right, and TRANSMITS INFRARED SIGNALS TO CONTROL DEVICES WIRELESSLY in white.
The back. No pin names; the square pad, now on the right, is still GND.

When it does not work

The LED never lights, or I cannot tell

You cannot see it: 940 nm is outside what an eye responds to. Point a phone camera at the clear LED; most show it as a faint flicker. The red LED beside it is on the same transistor, so it flickers whenever the infrared one does, dimly from 3.3 V.

Can a 3.3 V board drive it with VCC on 5 V?

Yes, and it is the combination to use. The pin only supplies base current through 1 kΩ, about 2.6 mA from 3.3 V; the LED's 24 mA comes from the 5 V rail through the transistor. VCC never reaches SIGNAL, so nothing needs level shifting.

Does sending take a timer or fix my pin?

On an Uno, no: IRremote makes the carrier in software on any pin. On an ESP32, ESP32-S3 and Pico it uses a hardware PWM channel by default, which also works on any pin. Receiving is what takes Timer2 on an Uno.

Can I get more range by raising VCC?

Not safely past 5 V. Nothing but the 150 Ω resistor limits the LED's current, and TinkerBlock blocks are built for 3.3 or 5 V. More range comes from 5 V instead of 3.3, from aiming, and from shade on the receiver.

Does it get warm?

It should not. From 5 V the LED takes about 24 mA, half its 50 mA continuous rating, and while sending the carrier keeps it on less than a third of the time.

Where this goes next

A sketch that sends a code you captured, and the one line that decides whether it works.

Be the remote

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