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Step 3Bread and Butter
If you were paying attention in the last step, you may have got a clue from the photo there, about what we are now going to build. Grab yourself a bread board, and wedge your freshly programmed Tiny45 in the middle of it, straddling the divide.
Next, get your LED and give it's underside a good close looking at, with a magnifying glass if you need to. Inside the clear plastic, one of the four pins is wired up differently to the other three. (see the photo) This is your common pin (i'm assuming, like me, you are using common anode LEDs). Make a note of this pin, don't loose it. Push the LED into the bread board, at an angle of about 45 degrees, this allows each pin of the LED to sit in a different track on the bread board. Now remove the LED again, because you've forgotten which pin is the common, find it, and push it back in again.
Grab the Tiny45 datasheet, or specifically this image, and with a bit of wire, connect the Common Anode pin to the same track of the breadboard that the t45's Vcc pin is sitting in.
Next, use the your resistors to connect the other three pins of the LED to ports PB1, PB3 and PB4 of the chip.
Now Grab your Arduino, and connect the 5V and Gnd to the chip's Vcc and Gnd tracks. This provides power for your Pixels. Next, connect PB0 on the chip to the Arduino's Analogue port 4, and PB2 to the Arduino's Analogue port 5. This is the I2C connections, the data bus down which instructions are sent to the pixels
Use the photos I've included as reference.
Now that everything is wired up, you should connect the arduino to a USB supply, and let the power flow! If it all goes well, you should see... er... nothing. perhaps a little flash from the LED as you power it up, but otherwise nothing at all. Don't panic, we should be all right.
Load up the BlinkM sequencer you downloaded in the last step, and in the file menu, select "connect to arduino". It will ask you what COM port, and you should enter whatever the arduino is on (help!). When the status text in the very bottom right of the sequencer window tells you it's connected, hit any colour on the swatch panel. Bask in the light of your own creation, as the LED glows forth. Or not. If it doesn't ( and it should) there is something wrong. Check these things:
I'm going to assume that you've just spent five minutes cursing, quietly, and then suddenly low and behold the light shines on!
Awesomeness in the supreme! You have built a Ghetto Pixel!
Next up, lets look at making this a bit more permanent, grab your iron, we're going a solderin'...
Next, get your LED and give it's underside a good close looking at, with a magnifying glass if you need to. Inside the clear plastic, one of the four pins is wired up differently to the other three. (see the photo) This is your common pin (i'm assuming, like me, you are using common anode LEDs). Make a note of this pin, don't loose it. Push the LED into the bread board, at an angle of about 45 degrees, this allows each pin of the LED to sit in a different track on the bread board. Now remove the LED again, because you've forgotten which pin is the common, find it, and push it back in again.
Grab the Tiny45 datasheet, or specifically this image, and with a bit of wire, connect the Common Anode pin to the same track of the breadboard that the t45's Vcc pin is sitting in.
Next, use the your resistors to connect the other three pins of the LED to ports PB1, PB3 and PB4 of the chip.
Now Grab your Arduino, and connect the 5V and Gnd to the chip's Vcc and Gnd tracks. This provides power for your Pixels. Next, connect PB0 on the chip to the Arduino's Analogue port 4, and PB2 to the Arduino's Analogue port 5. This is the I2C connections, the data bus down which instructions are sent to the pixels
Use the photos I've included as reference.
Now that everything is wired up, you should connect the arduino to a USB supply, and let the power flow! If it all goes well, you should see... er... nothing. perhaps a little flash from the LED as you power it up, but otherwise nothing at all. Don't panic, we should be all right.
Load up the BlinkM sequencer you downloaded in the last step, and in the file menu, select "connect to arduino". It will ask you what COM port, and you should enter whatever the arduino is on (help!). When the status text in the very bottom right of the sequencer window tells you it's connected, hit any colour on the swatch panel. Bask in the light of your own creation, as the LED glows forth. Or not. If it doesn't ( and it should) there is something wrong. Check these things:
- You have the I2C lines plugged in the right way round.
- Check the Fuses on the ATtiny45.
- Reflash the BlinkM communicator Sketch onto the arduino and then connect the sequencer to the arduino again.
- You are using the right code for the right kind of LED? (Common Cathode, or Anode?)
- Check all your cables.
I'm going to assume that you've just spent five minutes cursing, quietly, and then suddenly low and behold the light shines on!
Awesomeness in the supreme! You have built a Ghetto Pixel!
Next up, lets look at making this a bit more permanent, grab your iron, we're going a solderin'...
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im using piranha common cathode LEDs, i can`t get it working :(
please help me
greets from germany.
You don't need to use the firmware that I modified, because that's for the other type of LED's
Jim
connect LED to PB 3/4/1 ? with resistors of course... cant get it workin :(
greets from germany!
Jim
AVR Studio 4 isn`t recognizing my USB tiny ISP.... what can i do ??? oO
if i flash the .hex via avrdude it gives me a "success" and a led lights up...
rgb led is connected to GND -- common cathode and the R, G,B with a resistor to PB 1/3/4
in BLinkM Sequencer, at scan I2C bus nothing is shown
help please!
greets from germany ^^
all working now :D Thanks a lot :D
but tell me, do i always have to connect ghettopixels--arduino--pc ??
greets
Jim
1. Open Edit > Edit Channel IDs and change at least one channel #s to 0 (easiest to just do the top one). This will make one of the sequences on the main screen address 0 and now should be tied to your chip/LED.
2. If you want to change it, highlight channel 0 (the one you just set), select Tools > Change BlinkM I2C Address, and enter the new address. The # along the left of the sequencer should change to.
3. If you go back to Edit Channel IDs, the LED should now glow the color of the channel ID in the list. If not...it's just a matter of continually trying to reset it. Some of them I had to close/open the sequencer, reconnect the Arduino, etc. but you'll eventually get it. The key though is to see if it glows the correct color when opening the Edit Channel ID menu.
Next I need to figure out how to run them from a single chip with pre-programmed sequences that I can control using like a push button switch to toggle through them! Any idea where I might find a tutorial on that? :)
If doing common Annode, I would think you just connect that to an external power source, then tie in the ground to the ground on the arduino. But for common Cathode, I'm not sure how you'd do that.
Post some pics of your builds!
Jim
I would just liek toknow if this could be applied in the same manner to a Luxeon III Star Led like this one:
http://www.seeedstudio.com/warehouse/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=194.
i am kind of new to the whole electronics/led world and i've kind of hit a wall here.
im trying to get together an RGB LED preferably a luxeon or cree with super high light output and control the color sequences.
please advise,
Much appreciated.
Jim