Arduino Tutorial: LED Sequential Control- Beginner Project

Arduino Tutorial: LED Sequential Control- Beginner Project

Today I am going to show you guys a very simple arduino project for beginners. We’re going to get three different LEDs to turn on and turn off in a simple sequence, like you see here.

For this, you’re going to need an Arduino Uno or similar Arduino board, a breadboard (preferably with a positive and negative rail like this one), four breadboard jumper wires, a USB cable to for the Uno, three LEDs of different colors(here we are using Blue, Red and Green) and 3 220ohm resistors. Now we’re using 220ohm resistors, because they seem to work best with the LEDs we have- but you could use different resistors, depending on your LEDs and your circuit. I’ve put a link to an inexpensive arduino kit that contains all these components in the description below, in case you’re looking to get an arduino uno and all the basic components for this tutorial.

So lets first setup the hardware. The first step is to establish a common ground. To do this, use a jumper wire to connect the Ground pin on the arduino to the negative rail on the breadboard. This allows all the LEDs to use the ground pin on the arduino. Now we’ll insert the resistors into the breadboard. Space the resistors out with one leg connected to the the negative rail. Now its time to insert the LEDs. Before inserting the LEDs, its important to note that the longer of the two leads on most through-hole LEDs is the positive leads. Connecting it the wrong way, will cause this circuit to not work. Connect the negative lead of the LED to the horizontal rail on which the resistor is connected and connect the positive lead to an adjacent rail. Repeat this process for all three LEDs. Now its time to complete the circuit. We are going to use output ports 13, 12 and 11 for the input signal. Connect the positive lead of the LED on the right to pin 13, the LED in the center to 12 and the LED on the left to pin 11. The circuit is now complete. Power on the Arduino Uno by connecting it to your computer using the USB cable. The LEDs on the board turn on and the board powers up.

Before we work on our sketch, make sure to download the Arduino IDE for your specific operating system. I’ll leave a link to where you can download this software, in the description below. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the arduino IDE, go ahead and download the Sketch to run this program, using the link I’ve put in the description.

Open the downloaded file. The program first creates 3 variables. LED1, LED2 and LED3. This allows us to change the output pins, without having to modify the entire program. The code in the setup part of the program tells the arduino that pins 13, 12 and 11 will be outputs. The loop portion of the program is where the actual instructions live. The first three digitalwrite functions turn on one LED at a time with a 200ms delay between each of them turning on. The next three digitalwrite functions turn off the leds with a 300ms delay between each LED. Now you can change the delay between each LED to change the rhythm of the LEDs turning on and off. I’ve found that using 200ms and 300ms gives it a nice smooth rhythm. Now you’re ready to upload the program to the board. Now click on the Tools tab of the Arduino Window, make sure the Arduino Uno is selected as your board and make sure you select the COM port your board is connected to. Most of the times there will be one COM port available and that will be the one you need to select. Click on the upload button on the top left hand corner of the screen to upload the program to the Uno. A green progress bar on the lower right hand corner will indicate upload progress. And unless any errors appear in the black message bar at the bottom of the screen, your board should now be running the program and the LEDs should be turning on and off like you can see here.

Hope this tutorial was useful. Please hit LIKE for more Arduino tutorials and subscribe to stay tuned.

[ihrdlick]

I am almost 40y old, I ordered my first Arduino and I need videos like this. Thanks

[ProfMoose]

A true beginner's guide for beginners! Fed up with so many that assume just because you are new to Arduino you must have a degree in programming. This was like a breath of fresh air :-) I've subscribed!

[seminoletechtube]

Planning to teach electronics and animatronics using Arduino at my high school. I added more leds and modified the IDE sketch. It worked. Thanks for your efforts.

[klsar]

This easy-to-understand video will continue to get appreciations in many years to come !!

[worldofelectronicsandprogr]

Congratulations for the two Arduino tutorials! 🙏🙏🙏🙏 You explained very good the concepts in a slow rhythm, just perfect for an Arduino beginner! 😊😊😊😊 We are looking forward for more tutorials to learn more about this beautiful world of Arduino! 🌈🌈🌈🌈

[bdhoff]

This is a great basic tutorial. I'm just getting started with Arduino and this helped me understand how to work with pins via code.

[saralopez]

Thank you for uploading this! i just got my first arduino kit yesterday and your video helped me get my first project done. You've got a new subscriber here, I hope that there'll be new videos like this coming soon.

[CurtRowlett]

Great tutorial, easy to understand, and fun to make (and I even added in a fourth light). Thanks for making this video.

[johndurrant]

Thanks for this... Bought my 8 year old son an Arduino starter for Christmas and thanks to this video we were able to get our first project up and running before Christmas dinner!!

[Tobbetuna]

Watching this 2.5 years later and just HOPING the dropbox would be up. It was ! Awesome man. Got it working.

[threeelancer]

Thank you for explaining every step so well in terms of why it must be done and not just handing out a recipe. Good pacing too, videos feel succinct. Cheers.

[bryanunger]

I found this video very useful. I am just starting off with Arduino and this is a great first project. Your video was extremely simple to comprehend and I got this running in under 10 minutes. Thank you for taking the time to make such an incredible video.

[elizabethh]

You made this so easy, thank you so much! So much joy to see it light up.

[boulder]

The way you say things makes the whole idea click with my brain. Many thanks !

[jonnynasz]

What a great tutorial...I am a newbie on arduino I have watch at least 60 videos on how to connect multiple modules on arduino...This video is just the best...

[bridgetteh]

This was more helpful than the 12 other tutorials I just watched combined. Thank you!

[Bostish]

I think you did a great job! Got my first Uno today and this project was perfect for next level of blink :)

[garymedveczky]

Great beginner tutorial! I went from knowing nothing about Arduino to knowing how to code flashing LED's! Please make more.

[RMike-xqcm]

This was the best video I could find on how to do it.Thank you :) Managed to do it right after and tweaked a bit with the code.

[douglasfurtek]

Thank you for the beautiful introduction to Arduino. This is my first time and everything you said worked the first time.