Arduino not responding correctly

I have been playing about with my arduino since december (a fantastic xmas present) but just recently I bought some new electronics parts (a breadboard and some jumper wires) eager to build bigger ciruits but wanting to check everything worked first I set up the new bread board and completed a basic pin 13-breadboard-resistor-led-ground circuit.

It didn't work, assuming my understanding of the bread board was wrong i tried to form the circuit down a column (instead of across a row) which didn't work either. I then assumed my breadboard was bad and tried the new wires with an old bread board I know works. Nothing happened.

After a series of experiments it turns out the only thing my arduino can do right now is light up an led on pin 13 directly plugged into the arduino. Even if i write the code to make it blink, the led will not turn off. To further assume I was in the wrong I uploaded the blink tutorial code direct from the ide and still the led would not turn off.

Can someone help me restore my arduinos functionality as I very much enjoy developing with my arduino and would like to continue to do so.

Thanks.

Is pin 13 the only one that fails to work correctly? It is possible that you fried that pin, and a new chip is in your future.

Nope, 13 is the only one that I can determine that does anything.

Changed the blink example to use pin 12 and nothing appears to be happening. I have managed however to make the blink example work on pin 13 if the led is plugged directly into pin 13 and ground. I had to use virtualbox with windows in a virtual machine with the latest arduino software but its some small progress.

However I am still unable to use breadboards or wires.

Its an arduino Uno.

make the blink example work on pin 13 if the led is plugged directly into pin 13 and ground.

Don't do that you will fry the arduino. You NEED a resistor, if it didn't work with one you have either wired it up wrong or have too high a value, you should use something between 200 ohm to 800 ohm.

Does the software say the download of the sketch was successful? If so then most of it is working.

You should always put a resistor between the LED and ground, ALTHOUGH the arduino does not source enough current to fry an LED (I read this on the tutorials from the playground, but I wouldn't do it myself). Sounds to me that you might be using a resistor value that is too high so that the LED can not get enough current through it to light up enough for you to see it. Again, a cheap logic probe or multimeter would save you a lot of time now since you could just check the outputs on the arduino PINS with it and see whats going on.

try a smaller resistor as Grumpy_Mike suggested.
HTH

-Igor

I can confirm I have been using 100 ohm resistors for my projects thus far. I used those as its what came with a bundled kit. I have switched to 220 ohm (I believe) and I have as yet had no luck.

Sketches are uploaded correctly so I assume most of the board is working correctly, just not with this.

I am truly stuck now, I am also very curious as to why all of a sudden the board has stopped working since it worked fine until I unplugged it and didn't use it this weekend (of course it didn't do it to itself, I am just perplexed as to what caused it to appear to run fine then just not upon the next start up).

100 ohms is enough to not blow the pins.
Can you describe what the internel pin 13 LED does with the basic blink program?

When I launch the ide from a windows machine (which is the latest version) the internal led blinks correctly. I am stuck using the 21 revision of the software under linux because I am using a 64 bit os.

niadh:
When I launch the ide from a windows machine (which is the latest version) the internal led blinks correctly. I am stuck using the 21 revision of the software under linux because I am using a 64 bit os.

Which internal LED? There are 4 LEDs on the board, the one marked L is the pin 13 one. If that blinks pin13 works.

Have you remembered pinMode (pin, OUTPUT) in your investigations?

If the internal or included led ("L") is working then you may have some wiring problem. Post a hi-res picture. Did you switch the positive and the negative of the LED?

I can comfirm the L led blinks correctly.

I also do not have a hi res camera but I have taken what I can. I believe that I have gotten the LED the right way around.





I can clarify anything if needed.

Hi,
The LED needs to be mounted 'horizontally' in your pic.
The rows of 5 on the breadboard are in fact wires with 5 connection points, so you've just connected both pins of the LED together.

Well that was suitably embarassing....

Thanks for your help and sorry for the evident misunderstanding of electronics.

The breadboard connections are:

HTH
-Igor