Introduction: Mini Arduino LED Christmas Lights
Are you looking for a simple electronics project to get some practice with Arduino and PWM? Try this out!
What you need can be found on eBay (links below):
6 x Colour LED's of your choice (I used 3 red, 3 yellow)
6 x 1k Resistors
8 x Male-to-male jumper cables (I used 6 orange ones for the PWM signals and 2 for GND)
4 x Short breadboard wires to make common grounds from the LED's
1 x Mini prototyping breadboard
The 1k resistors are probably overkill, you can use less ohmage for more brightness. Just be careful not to draw more than 40mA per output pin or sink more than 200mA per ground pin.
Step 1: Wire Up the Circuit As Shown in the Image:
***NOTE: the LED cathodes (i.e. the pin at the flat edge) are negative, so they connect to ground. Wiring the LED's in reverse might destroy your Arduino.***
Step 2: Copy or Download the Code Below & Upload to Arduino
/*
6 LED Christmas Lights
This example shows how to fade six LED's on the pwm pins
using the analogWrite() function.
This concept code is based on the single led 'fade' example sketch.
*/
int ledPin1 = 3; // first LED on pin 3
int ledPin2 = 5; // second LED on pin 5
int ledPin3 = 6; // third LED on pin 6
int ledPin4 = 9; // fourth LED on pin 9
int ledPin5 = 10; // fifth LED on pin 10
int ledPin6 = 11; // sixth LED on pin 11
int brightness1 = 0; // minimum brightness
int brightness2 = 255; // maximum brightness
int fadeAmount = 51; // how many points to fade the LED by
// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
// declare led pins to be outputs:
pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin5, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin6, OUTPUT); }
// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
// set the brightness of LED's:
analogWrite(ledPin1, brightness1);
analogWrite(ledPin2, brightness2);
analogWrite(ledPin3, brightness1);
analogWrite(ledPin4, brightness2);
analogWrite(ledPin5, brightness1);
analogWrite(ledPin6, brightness2);
// change the brightness for next time through the loop:
brightness1 = brightness1 + fadeAmount;
brightness2 = brightness2 - fadeAmount;
// reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
if (brightness1 == 0 || brightness1 == 255){
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount;
}
// wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(30);
}
Attachments
Step 3: Done!
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