EDIT, nevermind… I used a camera to see if the diode was “working”, I didn’t test it for real on the devices it was supposed to control.
It did work but the camera didn’t see it.
Learned a lesson there…
I bought one of those IR blasters based on a ESP8285 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001666471902.html
I tried to hold a second IR diode on the connections on the backside and this second IR diod worked aswell.
Because I can’t have the IR diode on the inside of a case I desoldered the IR diod soldered on some extension wires and then tried to reconnect the “new” IR diode.
Now it doesn’t work.
When I use the multimeter I can see that there is connection from the pads to the LED legs.
I can trace it from IR + pad to VCC, and the other pin to the component just above it on this pin:
The long leg of the IR diode is connected to the pad that leads to VCC.
What could I have screwed up?
EDIT:
Now I have traced it all the way to GPIO 4.
I have also tried to connect the diode the other way around.