I'm building a laser remote control (not IR). I've got a phototransistor outputting to an NE567 tone decoder, set to the same frequency as the light source (23kHz from the laser - freq chosen for a specific reason).
The circuit works just as I want it to, apart from the fact that I want it to detect weaker laser signals (ie; reflected off a white surface 1m away).
What I would like to do is build a TUNED amplifier using an LC filter, so that only signals with the same freq (23kHz) are amplified.
I've tested my idea of a simple class C transistor amplifier based around a Colpitts oscillator, on a circuit simulator (which worked fine) and calculated my inductor and capacitor values, (4700uH and 10nF) but I can't get it to work in practice!
Does anybody have extensive experience in LC tuned circuits to give me clue as to where I'm going wrong?
...And I need it to be fairly cheap and preferably have a fairly low component count, as I have to make a dozen of these!