Help understanding beginner stuff

GreenFTWs

Member
Hey all!

Basically I need help understanding how this circuit I just posted works. To be honest, I don't even know if it works, and I need to make it more complex before handing it in. What I'm getting at here, is that I'd appreciate it if anyone could point me to some resources that would explain this to me, so that way I can build off of it. I don't know where to look at all...

Thanks!
 

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Haha good point well basically it's not fully setup... but it will have an LED for each resistor... and then it will light them up one at a time down the line. My lab is called " Serial to Parallel Conversion " so I guess its one of those...
 
Telling the part numbers of those 2 chips might help. I tried squinting while staring at the photo, but can't quite read them.
 
There's a built in Arduino function called ShiftOut which does most of the work to talk to these chips. This tutorial page explains how to use it and even gives an example controlling LEDs. Pictures show Arduino NG board, but it works exactly the same way on Teensy and all other Arduino compatible boards.

Teensyduino also comes with a library called ShiftPWM which transmits to these chips and gives a lot of really impressive features. Internally the code is very advanced, so not the sort of thing you'd want to use for a student project, but if you've wired up the chips it might be interesting to at least try running it. Just open its examples with File > Examples > ShiftPWM. As I recall, the examples require editing pin number for running on Teensy 4.x, which is explained by comments in the code. In other words, read those comments.

But for basic usage, go with ShiftOut and digitalWrite as the tutorial shows.

And if it doesn't work, remember we can't see your screen unless you give us a screenshot or exact copy, and if you've changed anything on the breadboard, we can only know what you've done if you share photos. We're much better at helping solve problems when we can see everything you've actually done.
 
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