Atmega32u4 Breakout Board - usage question

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coasttech
 
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Atmega32u4 Breakout Board - usage question

Post by coasttech »

I would like to use the Atmega32u4 Breakout Board to drive a string of programmable (or non-programmable) RGB leds.

I am starting at a bit of a newb level and after some googling I realised the button is a reset button and used for programming the board. What I would like to do with this is use a button to cycle through a set of colour cycles programmed on the board.

Is this possible?

End result with be the led strip sewn into clothing and run off battery. I have been using inline controllers but I want to make one my self that only has amazing options every tap of the button.

Thanks!

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Atmega32u4 Breakout Board - usage question

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

That's certainly possible, but if you're just getting started with microcontrollers, it will be easier to work with a board that has a bootloader (a small program that reads and installs new firmware from a computer).

The ATmega32u4 breakout is a bare chip, meaning you need to use different tools to program it. The process is a little more involved than using a bootloader, and the learning curve just to talk to the chip is a bit steeper.

The Metro Mini is functionally identical to the Arduino Uno, which is one of the one of the most common development boards:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2590

It's just smaller and more portable. We also have the Feather 32u4 Basic:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2771

which uses the ATmega32u4 microcontroller, but has a bootloadder ready to work with the Arduino IDE.

We have a series of tutorials over in the Learning System that will help you get familiar with the basic pieces and toolchain for microcontroller programming:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-ard ... on-1-blink

That will help you get familiar with things like reading input from a pushbutton and using the information to make the code do something. From there, you can build out to swapping from one NeoPixel pattern to another.

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