Book Image

Arduino BLINK Blueprints

By : Utsav Shah
Book Image

Arduino BLINK Blueprints

By: Utsav Shah

Overview of this book

Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino has been used in thousands of different projects and applications by a wide range of programmers and artists, and their contributions have added up to an incredible amount of accessible knowledge that can be of great help to novices and experts alike. Want to build exciting LED projects with Arduino? This book will be your companion to bring out the creative genius in you. To begin with, you will get introduced to the maker movement and the open source hardware development Arduino boards. You will then move on to develop a mood lamp and a remote-controlled TV backlight. As you progress through the book, you will develop an LED cube and will learn to use sound visualization to develop a sound-controlled LED Christmas tree. You will then move on to build a persistence of vision wand. At the end of each chapter, you’ll see some common problems, their solutions, and some workarounds.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Developing an LED night lamp


So now we have developed our mood lamp, but it will turn on only when we connect a power supply to Arduino. It won't turn on or off depending on the darkness of the environment. Also, to turn it off, we have to disconnect our power supply from Arduino. In this section, we will learn how to use switches with Arduino.

Introduction to switch

Switches are one of the most elementary and easy-to-overlook components. Switches do only one thing: either they open a circuit or short circuit. Mainly, there are two types of switches:

  • Momentary switches: Momentary switches are those switches which require continuous actuation—like a keyboard switch and reset button on the Arduino board

  • Maintained switches: Maintained switches are those switches which, once actuated, remain actuated—like a wall switch.

Normally, all the switches are NO (normally opened) type switches. So, when the switch is actuated, it closes the path and acts as a perfect piece of conducting wire. Apart from...