adafruit industries

Hello! I recently found a FeatherWing 8x16 LED Matrix that had been sitting in a drawer for a few years. I have a project for this display and an Arduino Micro to run it. It is all soldered and ready to go. I have checked the joints and they are all good. However, when I apply 3V to the FeatherWing, zero LEDs light up. I have tested the individual LEDs in the matrix and all of them work. I have tested the Micro and it works properly. The first image of the matrix on the below webpage shows that the display should light some random LEDs upon applying power. Is my FeatherWing dead? Is there anything else I could be missing? Thanks in advance!

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-8x1 ... cuitpython

The matrix won't light up with just power. Code needs to be running. What is your current code.py that is in the CIRCUITPY folder? Can you paste listing here.

Thanks for the reply! That is encouraging! I thought I had killed it somehow.

I'm simply trying to run the example, minimatrix16x8 from the Adafruit LED Backpack Library. No changes. Just trying to get something to light. The instructions aren't completely clear so I've trialed and errored to try to figure out which pin is 3V vs Ground and which pin is SDA vs SCL. No combination of connections results in anything other than a completely blank display.

If the FeatherWing is indeed still alive, I have a code problem.

FeatherWings were designed to be used with Feather main boards. Use with other boards is sometimes possible, but not generally supported. You'll need to use the specific FeatherWing's pinout information:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-8x1 ... ng/pinouts
to insure all necessary pins are being connected properly to the non-Feather main board.

That makes sense. I'm not sure how I missed such an obvious point. I have ordered a Feather since the Arduino Micro doesn't seem to work well with the FeatherWing. Thanks for the insight. Time to learn a new board!

If you still have issues even with the Feather, please post a photo of the setup showing how everything is connected and we'll take a look. But in general, it should "just work" with a Feather.

Got the Feather yesterday. It was simple to set up and as advertised, "just worked" with a few copied lines of example code. Now I'm in business! Great little board. Will have to get another just to play around with and learn more. Thanks again!