The best place to ask these questions is
[Link: groups.yahoo.com]I bet your soldered board is just a step away from working. I've built several myself, designed a circuit board, and I have a couple parts kits left. It's not unusual for prototyped boards to require a little debugging.
Here are some debugging steps:
0) Visual Check - Look for shorts. Don't trust your eyesight - use a magnifier; Use a meter with audible continuity tester.
1) Are you sure the software is addressing the parallel port at the right address? Does a printer work on the same port? What address is the port configured for?
2) What isn't working? Is remoteif -check failing? Is ir.exe failing the interface check? Or are these passing, but the data isn't transmitted properly?
3) Use a voltmeter to confirm that your circuit is providing good voltage to the IC and to JP1 Pins 1 and 2. Especially verify that your diodes are installed in the proper orientation.
4) With no power on the circuit, check the continuity (ohms) from all points in the circuit that should be grounded, back to pin 18 of the DB25. These grounded points include about 4 pins on the IC, one leg of two capacitors, one diode, and one resistor.
5) Did you use a 74HCT125, or did you substitute some other logic family, like HC or LS?
6) JP1 connectors can be failure prone, but won't affect the interface test. It may help to hold your connector to the remote pins.
If you don't have an oscilloscope or logic probe, you can use a LED (from Radio Shack) with a 300 ohm resistor soldered in series as a probe to test out parts of your circuit. You can use good'ole DOS DEBUG to do OUT's to your parallel port to wiggle the data bits that control the circuit. You should be able to turn the LED on and off.
