Grounding Multiple LEDs

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Hello,

I'm new to Arduino and new to Electronics and circuit building, and I'm planning as one of my first projects to connect a few, probably three, LEDs to my Arduino, and trigger them to blink at different times. I know how to handle the programming side of things, but I just need some help on how to connect the LEDs.

I'm going to connect each LED to its own output pin, perhaps 10, 11 and 12 for example, and place a 1k? resistor between each LEDs anode and its assigned output pin. However, I'm a little confused about where to ground each LED. Is it okay to connect all three of the LED's cathodes to a single wire, going into a single ground pin, or will I have to make use of three ground pins?

Thanks in advance,

Sean. :slight_smile:

2

Is it okay to connect all three of the LED's cathodes to a single wire, going into a single ground pin, or will I have to make use of three ground pins?

Yes, connect the three cathodes together and use one wire to ground. All the arduino's ground pins are connected to one Gnd connection of the power supply, so it makes no difference how many wires it goes through to get there.

and place a 1k? resistor between each LEDs anode and its assigned output pin

Good to see you remembered the resistors! If the LEDs are too dim, try a 330 ohm resistor.

Onions.

3

Thanks for the reply, I'll bear that in mind!