How to control LED's with Processing and Arduino

The other day I was confronted with an interesting problem, I needed to control a series of lights from an interaction on a computer screen and it had to be as inexpensive as possible.  I instantly thought of an Arduino.  It had everything that I needed, more than enough I/O, an integrated USB and its only $30.  To communicate with the Arduino I decided to use Processing.  The two work really well together because of Arduino's close family relation to Processing.

Step 1 The Materials

Its time to gather all of the bits and pieces necessary to make this happen:

The Software:
Processing - can be found at www.processing.org
Arduino - Can be found at www.arduino.cc

The Hardware:
Arduino USB board (I used the Diecimila, because that's what I had)
8x LEDs of your choice
8x 330ohm resistors
Break away headers
single sided copper clad
Ferric Chloride
tiny drill bit
USB cable

Comments

[mohamed100]

Thanks for this and i have a question on that :
can i controller in RC car using this method of controlling ?

[lmperkins]

Thanks, this was really helpful. I set it up on a breadboard rather than making a custom pcb and it worked great. My first successful us of Processing.

[knobcheese]

Thanks - worked for me :)

p.s. LEDs is the plural of LED - so no apostrophe

[rk24]

 I want to control the leds from internet...

can you do that?

:S please 

[Coding Kid]

Yes, but you would need a ethernet of wifly shield.

[jman 31]

Neat project. I downloaded the pdf file and when I printed it some of the traces are touching. Is there any chance you could post your Eagle files so that I could clean it up a little bit?

[SammyDestruction]

Thanks, I posted the Eagle schematic and board file along with the PDF.  Hopefully that helps!

[jman 31]

Hey man thanks for the effort, but for some reason neither the board or schematic files is working. If it's not to much trouble could you have a look at that. Thanks again!

[SammyDestruction]

Sorry about that, it should be working now.  good luck!

[jman 31]

Sorry, it must be on my end. Every time I download it it is saving it as a .tmp file. I see what you are doing so I will just recreate it in Eagle.

Thanks
Jman

[SammyDestruction]

Try changing the name of the file to "LED ProtoShield.brd" and "LED ProtoShield.sch" when you are saving it.

[jman 31]

This worked perfectly for me! I was able to get the right serial input by following your instructions and it worked great. I am just starting to learn about programmable IC's and this was a good easy learning curve.

I did have to make my own Eagle file as I was never able to upload your, and your PDF was coming out with traces touching for me. I am going to try to upload my PDF in case anyone had the same problem as me. Mine is made with the copper side down though.

http://www.italentshare.com/storage/PICs/LEDShield.pdf

[frollard]

Nifty gizmo!

I always think that using 8 pins to control 8 leds is overkill...but so is using a shift register to use 3 pins instead of 8 :D

Great little learning chunk!