am i even close?

You should probably have posted this in his thread. We talked a little about what parts to use, and such. You should also mention the specific parts that you plan to use, so that someone can make sure that they are suitable for your needs. Probably you want some .1uf (104) caps with your 595s.

Hippynerd:
You should probably have posted this in his thread. We talked a little about what parts to use, and such. You should also mention the specific parts that you plan to use, so that someone can make sure that they are suitable for your needs. Probably you want some .1uf (104) caps with your 595s.

i think he made that topic because of me lol... well any mod can split/merge topics if they wanted and know how. i'm mod on a gardening forum.. i have done it a few times before..

Grumpy_Mike:
That is probably because he didn't think you did not know such a fundamental thing.
See:-
De-coupling

that or i may not need it for my project.. everyone's projects are different regardless of certain similarities.. just 1 or 2 differences is all it takes

I'm pretty sure I mentioned needing a 0.1uF cap per chip in the PMs about your project.
Maybe for the WS2803 that we discussed so you could have color control that was more than white, red, blue, green, red+blue, red+green, blue+green, off.

i think it was for the other project, but i have those anyways... :slight_smile: i just want to connect these 10 correctly so that i can start doubling it an and so forth..

once i get these 10 working.. i think this project will move along rather quickly..

nvm, i thought those were one of the ones i bought.. hmm.. k, no worries i'll pick some up 8)

0.1uF 50V ????

nobody got fritzing to show me how to do this?

that or i may not need it for my project.

Just to be clear, you always need decoupling capacitors on any project that has one or more ICs.

0.1uF at 16V, 25V, 50V, all will do. They may get bigger in size with higher voltage, keep an eye on that.

Fritzing is a toy, I refuse to use it. The schematic clearly shows what to connect. Fritzing only shows half of what is needed to make sure things are connected correctly - like a black box for a transistor - but which pin is E, B, C? Same for shift register - which pins do what?

Expanded to show missing current limit Rs, and proposed expansion with "layer enable" towards making a 10x10x10 cube.

k, taking a break because i'm just about to give up... i need to be able to SEE it connected not just drawn up (like how/where to connect the pnp's, the 0.1uF's, etc..).. those schematics are helpful, but i can't connect them if i don't see them actually connected together... some people are just visual learners and i'm one of them..

bad enough all the parts for arduino are small.. the biggest part i have are the 830 pin breadboards.. so i gotta SEE how things are connected..

you can't fit all this on a breadboard... so it then be a matter of putting on one of these:

and that will be fun all on it's own.. so all i want is to see the first 10 fully connected properly, not so much to ask i think

i need to be able to SEE it connected not just drawn up

No you don't, a physical layout is much more complex than a schematic, it is much more easy to miss things, have holes displaced by one or forget a break. The point is that a physical layout means nothing, you can't follow what the circuit is doing, it is a dead end in your education.

some people are just visual learners and i'm one of them..

If so then following a physical layout is the last thing you want to do. Reading a schematic and making sure the bits are connected together correctly IS a visual learners experience. Just blindly following a layout is no learning experience at all. It is like the difference between drawing a picture and coloring in some one elses picture. In fact it is less educational. At least when you colour in you are choosing the colours, following a layout you are making no contribution at all.

you can't fit all this on a breadboard

Bread boards are another thing I detest and should be banned for anything that uses more than six components.

so it then be a matter of putting on one of these:

Lots of other prototyping options, I use strip board, very cheap and versatile.
http://www.rapidonline.com/Tools-Equipment/Stripboard-29453

In short, no you are not even remotely close.

Another reason that Fritzing is not the best solution for this - It may LOOK all happy, but in reality on the first 74HC595 pin 16 is connected to the blue cathode as well as the green cathode, and pin 15 is connected to the green cathode and the common anode. Pin 10 is connected to the blue cathode of the second RGB LED as well as the red cathode of the third RGB, repeat for each following 74HC595 and RGB LED. This is a train wreck of wiring. While a schematic may be scary at first a proper schematic, followed properly, will eliminate such wiring mistakes and prevent you from destroying your components.

all i know is that all this arduino stuff was supposed to be something fun for my son and i to do together.. but in the end it's just frustrating and pissing me off royally!

youtube vids don't show jack except to show "hey look what i did".. but nothing else... everyone has their own way of doing things - so when you have like 5 different people telling you something - you don't really get anywhere.. pretty soon i'm gonna say screw it and sell everything on ebay, i don't need all this frustration.

bought all these parts that i have - thinking we're all set, nope you have to buy this or that too.. and then you put together and still get nowhere..

ex: i bought this thing - put it together, yet i have yet to see a tutorial on it's usage:

ask the seller for some resources - they don't have any to give... i googled for it - all i find are images of it like that one.. look for tutorials, nothing - and this is just 1 example of all the things we have.. lcd screens which i have no idea how to use them.. so ok get into leds... nope, can't find exactly what i want... ask for help - i'm told i'm doing it wrong.. like wth already.

If you were learning French, would you start with "Le Chat Au Chapeau", then pick up Marcel Proust, and not expect to get "royally pissed"?
Work at the simple stuff, build on it.

i agree, but honestly - my son and i are getting tired of blinking lights on a breadboard... when we want to do so much more with them..

Ruffsta:
ex: i bought this thing - put it together, yet i have yet to see a tutorial on it's usage:

ask the seller for some resources - they don't have any to give... i googled for it - all i find are images of it like that one.. look for tutorials, nothing - and this is just 1 example of all the things we have..

Often the best Google search is the chip number and the word Arduino. After some image searching I found that what you bought is the MAX7219 kit like those sold by cutedigi.com.

A Google search turned up some resources:
http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/MAX72XXHardware
http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/LEDMatrix

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Matrix.html

Ruffsta:
i agree, but honestly - my son and i are getting tired of blinking lights on a breadboard... when we want to do so much more with them..

I completely understand your frustration. There is great help available here from most of the people. Some have shorter attention spans than others, some have totally forgotten what it's like to be new to Arduino. Most are very patient and helpful.

As for your LED matrix board, find any project that has code for the max7219 chip, ignore all the wiring related to connecting the individual pins to the LED's as that is what the LED driver board has done for you, and just connect the VCC (power), GND (ground), DIN (data in), CS (load), and CLK (clock) pins to the appropriate pins on your Arduino. In the Arduino sketch, you will see something like:

int dataIn = 2;
int load = 3;
int clock = 4;

That means in that particular code, you would connect the DIN pin on the LED driver board, to pin 2 on your Arduino, the CS pin on the LED driver board to pin 3 on your Arduino, and the CLK pin on the LED driver board to pin 4 on your Arduino. You would connect 5 volt power from your Arduino to the VCC pin on the LED driver board, and ground from your Arduino to the GND pin on your LED driver board.

After you upload the code to the Arduino, you should now see your LED matrix come to life.

yeah, i have a topic on this, i was just stating an example..

and i sort of gave up on it because of the bit coding - i don't know how to do it and have the matrix display what i want it to - and then later add more matrix's to it and do more..

ex:

unsigned char disp1[38][8]={
{0x3C,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x3C},//0
{0x10,0x18,0x14,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10},//1
{0x7E,0x2,0x2,0x7E,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x7E},//2
{0x3E,0x2,0x2,0x3E,0x2,0x2,0x3E,0x0},//3
{0x8,0x18,0x28,0x48,0xFE,0x8,0x8,0x8},//4
{0x3C,0x20,0x20,0x3C,0x4,0x4,0x3C,0x0},//5
{0x3C,0x20,0x20,0x3C,0x24,0x24,0x3C,0x0},//6
{0x3E,0x22,0x4,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8},//7
{0x0,0x3E,0x22,0x22,0x3E,0x22,0x22,0x3E},//8
{0x3E,0x22,0x22,0x3E,0x2,0x2,0x2,0x3E},//9
{0x8,0x14,0x22,0x3E,0x22,0x22,0x22,0x22},//A
{0x3C,0x22,0x22,0x3E,0x22,0x22,0x3C,0x0},//B
{0x3C,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x3C,0x0},//C
{0x7C,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x7C,0x0},//D
{0x7C,0x40,0x40,0x7C,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x7C},//E
{0x7C,0x40,0x40,0x7C,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40},//F
{0x3C,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x44,0x44,0x3C},//G
{0x44,0x44,0x44,0x7C,0x44,0x44,0x44,0x44},//H
{0x7C,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x7C},//I
{0x3C,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x48,0x30},//J
{0x0,0x24,0x28,0x30,0x20,0x30,0x28,0x24},//K
{0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x40,0x7C},//L
{0x81,0xC3,0xA5,0x99,0x81,0x81,0x81,0x81},//M
{0x0,0x42,0x62,0x52,0x4A,0x46,0x42,0x0},//N
{0x3C,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x3C},//O
{0x3C,0x22,0x22,0x22,0x3C,0x20,0x20,0x20},//P
{0x1C,0x22,0x22,0x22,0x22,0x26,0x22,0x1D},//Q
{0x3C,0x22,0x22,0x22,0x3C,0x24,0x22,0x21},//R
{0x0,0x1E,0x20,0x20,0x3E,0x2,0x2,0x3C},//S
{0x0,0x3E,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8},//T
{0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x22,0x1C},//U
{0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x42,0x24,0x18},//V
{0x0,0x49,0x49,0x49,0x49,0x2A,0x1C,0x0},//W
{0x0,0x41,0x22,0x14,0x8,0x14,0x22,0x41},//X
{0x41,0x22,0x14,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8,0x8},//Y
{0x0,0x7F,0x2,0x4,0x8,0x10,0x20,0x7F},//Z
{0x8,0x7F,0x49,0x49,0x7F,0x8,0x8,0x8},//Chinese character
{0xFE,0xBA,0x92,0xBA,0x92,0x9A,0xBA,0xFE},//Chinese character

that's all gibberish to me and not to mention the display of that coding on the matrix is NOT unified - the letters and numbers jump all over the place and the number "1" is backwards even.. the code i have is: http://www.linksprite.com/upload/file/1347631413.txt

anyways, getting back to this topic, i bought a pegboard from home depot.. it will hold 1,012 RGB leds (which is what i want to use and control each led individually - (on/of and color).. just wanted to see how the first 10 are connected - from there i could do the rest.

all the projects we have would be considered "large" for beginners i guess.. my son and i can solder and i can code (well, this is new to me - but i'll get it).. it's just hooking up all the parts.. ie: 0.1uF and the pnp and chaining the the 74HC595 - so, i don't consider the projects that big.. just confusing on method of doing it.

MAX7219 is nice, but not so much for RGB LEDs.
The 4 74HC595s and PNP transistors will do the job just fine once a building strategy is worked out.
Using a schematic, a piece of perfboard, and a yellow highlighter, is one of the best ways to keep track of what's been assembled.
Making the design on protoboard will be totally awkward given the small component size and the need for the current limit resistors.

I would get some big perfboards like this
http://www.dipmicro.com/store/PCB-UNI18H
Mount the LEDS one row at a time and wirewrap the anodes together, then add the next row and wirewrap the cathodes together, building up to the 10x10 martix.
Then add the PNP transistors and the resistors, and lastl add the 74HC595s and bring the control signals out to a header where the arduino could be mated to it.
Do some intermediate testing with a 5V supply and an 270 or 330 ohm resistor to make sure LEDs were lighting up properly.

My wife made up a 5x20 single color matrix to test a design, took 3 complete long prototype strips and feet of 4-conductor telephone wire with connectors crimped on to plug into two boards like this


with everything all cable tied together in an attempt to keep it stable enough so I could write code for testing. We're both engineers, and it was not an easy task.
So 10x10, your best option is to just build it, and test as you go.
LEDs soldered down onto perfboard are very stable, and the square legs are easy to wirewrap to.

CrossRoads:
We're both engineers, and it was not an easy task.

look how cool that is tho.. working with someone (especially with someone you live with) that is in the same field, building something like that.. always a hand right there or someone you can refer to if needed about something you both like to do.. i don't have anyone here in person to help me with this or any of our projects.. the people i know are all into body building, security (which i used to do).. none of them are into this stuff.. i got into it because of my son.. but neither one of us are good enough to be teaching the other.. maybe it wasn't easy, but you guys got it done.. and faster than i would ever get it done that's for sure.

vs

hmmmm... 1,012 rgb leds... either way - it's not gonna pretty.. but atleast we can solder..