I too tried the same tutorial with a universal remote. Absolute disaster, I couldn't figure out what was going on. I gave up in the end.
Maybe I'll try again ( since I've built the hardware ).
There were about 16 different codes for Sony TV. I tried them all - none of them gave anything like a sony waveform. I tried the Sony CD code. That gave something more like a sonywave form - changed the device ID in Nigel's program from tv 0x00 to CD 0x11 and it worked 100%. Would not have had a clue what was going on without an oscilloscope and Nigel pointing out it was not a Sony waveform. Try using another Universal remote.
Another spanner in the works was my circuit did not work from my 9v battery and 7805.
Originally I was powering the circuit from my laptops USB. Circuit worked 100%. Button 1 would toggle the LED. Buttons 2 and 3, On and Off respectively.
Once everything was working I decided to switch over to battery power. Everything stopped working. Granted my circuit is lacking in capacitors, actually I don’t have a single one - need to buy some.
But very weird behaviour: The circuit refused to work at all. There was a wire hanging out of the bread board, it was plugged into the negative, by chance I held on to the end and noticed the circuit started to work 100% as it should.
Can someone please explain this phenomenon to me - it's dangerous, someone could seriously lose their sanity over this - I can even push button 2 to turn the LED on and nothing happens. I then touch the wire and magically the LED comes on. I can then push button 3 and nothing happens, touch the end of the wire and again magically it turns off the light. What's going on? (Wayyyy, I have made a touch lamp) How do we avoid this kind of thing in circuits we build? What is it called? I was very lucky I noticed this early on. Circuit works normally when powered from USB 5v.
Dont give up house of wax - IR and RF are great things to master. Home automation/Robots all things fun are wireless it's magical.