19 Nov 2011

No. 1 - Use switch and potentiometer to control a LED

In our first project, I will be showing you the basic connections of a LED circuit. To make it more interesting and challenging, I later on replace the switch with a potentiometer, to control the brightness.





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Using 4 legs Switch
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/*
  Oscar's project
 
  turn LED on and off with a switch
 
*/

// constants type won't change (just good practice, can declare without)
// set pin numbers:
const int buttonPin = 1;     // the number of the pushbutton pin
const int ledPin =  2;      // the number of the LED pin

// variables will change:
int buttonState = 0;         // variable for reading the pushbutton status

void setup() {
       
  // initialize the LED pin as an output:
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);    
  // initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);    
}

void loop() {

        // read the state of the pushbutton value:
        buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
       
        // check if the pushbutton is pressed.
        // if it is, the buttonState is HIGH:
        if (buttonState == HIGH)
                // turn LED on:    
                digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); 
        else
                // turn LED off:
                digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); 
               
        // have some delay (optional)
        delay(30);  
}


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Using Potentiometer
================================

When you are connecting to different Digital outputs, you will find some doesn't give you the change of brightness effect, but a switching on/off effect, such as 2. Port 3 is the first PWM output in order, so we will use that.

The reason is because we need to have PWM (pulse-width modulation) output to have an analogue-like effect, otherwise we will only have a pure digital output which is only on and off. Read more about PWM here XXX.


 

 
/*
  Oscar's project
 
  adjust LED lightness using potential meter
 
*/

int brightness = 0;    // how bright the LED is
int ledPin = 3; // PWM output

void setup() {
    // declare pin 9 to be an output:
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
 
  int sensorValue = analogRead(A0);
 
  // sensorValue 0 - 1023
  // brightness 0 - 255
  brightness = sensorValue/4;
 
  // set the brightness of pin 9:
  analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);  

  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect    
  delay(30);  
}