Output Devices - LED Array
This week we focused on fabricating output devices. I chose the 'helloArray' board, which consists of an array of 20 charlieplexed LEDs. This is a technique used to drive many LEDs with relatively few digital out pins on a microcontroller. In this case we are driving 5 rows of 4 LEDs with only 5 microcontroller pins! This leaves other pins on the microcontroller open for other purposes (instead of dedicating an entire microcontroller to just drive an array of LEDs). Of course the only purpose of this board in particular is to drive LEDs but on to the helloArray!
After picking through the inventory for all 51 components (Then dropping them all and having to pick them off the floor...) I'm ready to get solderin'!
After soldering the microcontroller and the first row of resistor I realize that this is going to take a lot longer than I had initially realized.
Starting to get pretty sick of soldering... 
Aaaand......Done!
After flashing the makefile onto the board I found that 4 LEDs were not working.
After some resoldering (had a couple crossed traces, i guess I'm lucky i didn't short the whole circuit as the microcontroller was getting pretty hot) I got all LEDs to flash!
I played around a little bit with the C to try and get some interesting patterns to flash. I managed to come up with a few lines of c that made the LEDs create an "O" that scrolls to the side.
