Losing sleep over rewiring the LED Cube Matrix

Please help me chaps, I had this all figured out now somehow I've messed it up.

I'm using the Arduino to program my 8x8 matrix, to start off with it's just one layer. I managed to get it working successfully, and program a diagonal scroll in there.

However, I've built all 8 layers now, and yet I'm having no luck trying to hook it up again. I know it works because I had the same problem before and fixed it, though I didn't take any pics - my biggest regret.

So if you wouldn't mind taking a look at my set up to see if there's something obvious I've missed out. I'm sure a second brain will point out my mistake, and everything will be good again. I'm losing sleep over this. :frowning:

Oh, the rows/columns are unplugged to give you a better idea of what's going on. And there is a connection from +5V to the chip, it's just hiding behind that resistor in the second pic :wink:

I suppose you have them plugged into the analog pins on purpose? the diagram makes me think you meant digital pins 2/3/4.

-j

God I hope it wasn't as simple as something like that!!! I'll go try now and report back... See what lack of sleep does to you!!

Edit: Seems like that's not the issue here, I just hooked it up and it's still not working - but one of the wires may be faulty. Just to check, I'm using the Zambetti LED matrix code for Max7219. Should I be using digital or analogue pins out?

That was it!

I feel very stupid... ;D

But very happy!

Now comes the mission of getting more than one chip working in sync... Has anyone posted any code that can do this?

here are some old post about "Daisy chaining multiple max7219 chips"
there you also will find some code, and also some more problems you could also get,
this week is will try the trick with the capacitors and then i can report if it works or not,
but since the problem seems to be eletronic based the code i posted should be fine,...

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1168054935

if you want i could send the arduino files to you per pm,...

good lucke, and keep on reporting if you get it to work,

vi ses
tomek

Can I by chance ask where you got your LEDs? I am doing pretty much the same thing and am looking for a cheap source to get 500 leds. Right now I am thinking jameco. I don't have the price in front of me now but I think that they were ~$0.065US each. Just curious.

Oh and what are you planning to do with your matrix (if you don't mind)?