3.0 - Blink
Building on our Blink
skillz, lets build a LED circuit and control it with UNO!
For this project you will need a breadboard, some jumper wires, a 220 or 330 ohm resistor, and an LED.
Know your LED: the longer leg is the
anode
and connects to positive voltage, i.e.+
or5V
; the short leg is thecathode
and connects to ground, i.e.-
orGND
.
Know your resistor: resistors are marked by color bands, but they are often hard to read - check them with a multimeter.
3.1 - First circuit
-
Gently push the legs of your LED into two different rows on the breadboard. Remember which one is the long leg!
-
Connect the LED
cathode
(short leg) toGND
by inserting the legs of a 220 ohm resistor into the row and the-
Rail. -
Connect the LED
anode
(long leg) to5V
by inserting a jumper wire into the row and the+
Rail. - Connect the breadboard to the UNO’s power supply:
- use a red jumper wire to connect the
+
rail to the pin labeled5V
on the UNO. - use a black jumper wire to connect the
-
rail to any pin labeledGND
on the UNO (you have 3 choices).
- use a red jumper wire to connect the
- Plug your UNO into your usb cable.
You should now have a beautiful glowing LED!
3.2 - Blink it!
This circuit is drawing power from UNO, but it is not controlled by it. We need to connect the LED to a pin so we can start blinking!
-
Unplug the wire connecting the
anode
from the+
rail. -
Connect the
anode
wire to pin10
on the UNO. -
On the IDE
Blink
sketch, replaceLED_BUILTIN
with10
. The basic code should look like:void setup() { pinMode(10, OUTPUT); } void loop() { digitalWrite(10, HIGH); delay(1000); digitalWrite(10, LOW); delay(1000); }
-
Plug UNO into the usb, and click the upload arrow to load the sketch.
You should now have a beautiful Blinking LED!
3.3 - Extra credit
- make an interesting pattern blinking both the LED and LED_BUILTIN.
- add another LED and make them blink together.