I would like to announce the birth of my 2nd project from Adafruit, my LED belt. My first was the TV-B-Gone, good times there
.Any way... I at first had some difficulty in getting the LED strip to light. I followed every direction to the T and could not believe I was having a problem. When my package arrived I ripped into it with great anticipation and noticed the correct end of the strip was pre soldered for me. I thought that was nice. However I noticed that the solder on pads LI and CI were almost touching and the "cut" was less than what I expected. At first I suspected MOSFET I quickly dismissed it as paranoia.
After dinner I fired up the soldering station, reread the instructions, and did the driver install. No problems...
I soldered on the header, again smooth sailing... trimmed up the IDC cable and tinned the ends... soldered the cable per instructions to the end of the LED ribbon, skipping the 5th wire. I then stopped to admire my work, only to discover the job looked like it was preformed by a one armed octopus. I have seen soldering jobs of one armed octopus before and trust me... I digress.
I continued my quest for LED joy and dove into the task of getting everything working on the PC. I followed the instructions for installing and mod'ing teensyduino and emerged victorious, I thought. Flashed the code over and then I only got the red power light, no green light, and no LED's. The instructions said I should get the blinky test. I did not. I redid the software install instructions, re-flashed the code, and still no joy.
I troubleshooted my way back and ruled out everything but my shoddy soldering of the LED strip. I removed the cable and with great reluctance trimmed off 2" of the ribbon back to the cut line. I now had a smooth flush cut and bare soldering pads. I tinned the pads, reattached my IDC cable to the LCD ribbon, reconnected my board and PC, and *blam* joy! It worked... the light were blinking! I quickly finished the project by attaching the battery pack and shrink tubing. What a masterpiece!
So, now my question is... the Atmega32u4 is only programmable when the green light is flashing and that period is in the first 10 seconds of powering on or pressing the reset button... correct? Other than that the green light remains off. I ask because in step 1 "Plug in and Install driver" when plugging the Atmega32u4 breakout board into my PC the green light never turns off, the "pulsing" continued until I unplugged it from my PC.
In closing, I don't know what the issues were that prevented my joy the first time. I don't know if I left the iron down too long when attaching the wire. I don't know, but the removal of the IDC cable and the prompt amputation of 2" of my LCD ribbon solved the problem.
I have taken a bite of the Adafruit and am hooked. I love the energy, the wealth of information that spews from this section of the interwebs, the spirit of Open Source, and all things techie.
Adafruit, expect an order for a SpokePOV, a Ice Tube clock, and well one of everything.
The LED belt and TV-B-Gone should be really popular tomorrow night at the Karaoke bar... hope you have the lyrics memorized.
~Starving College Student