Arduino Tutorial 43: Binary Counter with 74HC595 Serial to Parallel Shift Register

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IN the lesson we show you how to build a binary counter using LEDs connected to a 74HC595 Serial to Parallel converter.

You can get the kit I am using for this series at the following link:

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#Arduino

[SteveLeone]

Hi Paul. I actually did this one when working on Tutorial #42 in anticipation that it would be our next homework assignment. :) Paul, you are a most gifted educator! Your ability to break down concepts and not assume prior knowledge has been extremely helpful to me. You are humble and truly concerned that we understand what we are doing. My wife, who listens in sometimes, and I find you very funny as well. Thank you for not just showing us perfectly completed work. Showing us your troubleshooting technique is really helpful. On the last assignment all of my lights were coming on and staying on before executing the code.. I triple checked the wiring and made sure that the code was perfect. It turns out that I had a similar problem that you experienced. My 74HC595 was not seated properly. I removed it, check the prongs and then carefully reseated it and that did the trick. So far I have completed all the Tutorials up to this one and the homework assignments as well and can't wait to do the next one. You make learning fun Paul. Thank you and I know I am not alone in my appreciation. Cheers Paul!

[donalddalrymple]

The homework was easier than I thought. I'm diggin' it.

[KisorcererAMP]

This was the fastest that I've ever completed a homework assignment! Thank you!

[tntragan]

I did it. I found the simplest solution possible. Thanks to your suggestion of finding a simple solution it came to me right away. I credit your methodical teaching approach. I'm super excited that I found the solution so fast. All I did was make LEDs variable a binary number and started with all 0's then in the shiftOut line I kept the code exactly the same except I made LEDS++ which added 1 to the number on each loop. Incredible. I have to admit that I was surprised when it worked. I was expecting to spend all night trying to find that simple solution. That was super cool. Thanks so much for your detailed and well thought out approach to teaching. It is very effective for me.

[mohsenr]

These example tutorials help a lot. Thank you.

[GeoGebweiler]

Hello Paul. Thanks for the lesson. I did the homework in a different way and it also works. I used a for-loop to solve the problem.
"for (i == 0; i<= 255; i++)" works fine -also the alternative binary loop "for (i == i<= i++)" and the hex-loop for "(i == 0x00; i<= 0xFF; i++)". The "shiftOut (dataPin, clockPin, LSBFIRST, i);" statement in the loop sets the LEDs in the right order. 
Thanks for teaching. Now I try to solve the next assignment.

[gilnasty]

Got it to work NO PROBLEM!! Played with it counting in BIN, HEX, and DEC. Really getting a hang of the binary "code". I find it easy to understand and exciting to play around with!! Thanks for the excellent lesson!!

[aman-sood]

Homework done on my own and I must say it was EASY all caps. Reading other people's comments they put a lot more work into this than I did. I simply added 1 to the byte! It was the first thing I thought of when Paul gave the homework last video.

[trumpatier]

You were right about the homework being simple Paul! It seems there are multiple ways to accomplish it, I didn't even think mine was going to work. I declared my byte as 'leds' without giving it a value. Added an integer 'j' and set it = 0. In void loop I set leds=j; and set j=j+1 after the initial digitalWrites. Worked like a charm! Also added a serial.print for the decimal and binary numbers of the counter :)

[charlielowell]

This homework, because of your previous videos, was by far the simplest. Thanks again sir!

[antrikshfulwani]

To make the binary counter, I added a for loop, and completed the homework in less than 5 minutes with no errors! Fastest I've ever done anything. It was a great lesson, I absolutely loved it.

[OtAkU]

Hey Paul, i did my homewrok, as I always do! and its pretty easy, i was scared because of what you said at the end of your last video. I just made a for loop, and declared my counter as a HEX number and just added one each count, and it worked! this time I think i deserved an A++

[DodoDodo-hulr]

Hi, I just completed tutorial43 today 1/20/2023, and did my homework with a simple while loop. By the way I am watching your videos from West Africa (Mali) and I will watch them all God willing. But I do not hold my breath 😅😅😅. Thank you very much for the great content you produced. God bless you.

[funkymonkey]

I feel like the reason why the homework was so easy was because Mr. McWhorter is a passionate teacher! He explains WHY and HOW these things work, which makes it easy to figure it out.

[Doodad]

This was admittedly the first homework assignment I was able to figure out on my own. I simply added "++" after LED1 in the shiftOut function line and set the byte to 0x00. Worked like a charm!

[Traxonen]

I did it by myself and succeeded directly in HEX! So proud and thankful tou you!

[tonygolden]

While the lights were lighting I had the Serial monitor print each number in binary, decimal, and hexadecimal. Another fun project. Thanks Paul.

[evreid]

Homework took a bit but finally figured it out. Trouble with broken wires, bad 74Hc595 chip, made things interesting. Finally figured it out. Thanks paul

[hitormissgna]

I was able to do the homework with no issues. I also had me serial monitor printing in all three formats along with the LEDs. Very cool. Thank you.

[RavensHammer]

The homework for today took me all of 30 seconds to do! I loved those days back in school! I had to get a new breadboard, that was my problem from the last lesson, took a while to trouble shoot, because it was a few different slots and rows that ended up not making sufficient contact. Thanks for being a great teacher!