chevyboy:
i'm fairly new to microcontrollers, i took 1 coarse where we made a digital clock but there was no programming involved, just a microcontroller and a pulse signal that we used as a counter. i'm looking to control a load lets say its an LED. i need to turn the led on for aproximately 1 second then off, then on for 2 seconds then off and not have it repeat. but i need to adjust the time down because it won't be exactly 1 or 2 seconds. it will be a trial and error, any ideas on how i could do this? if you can tell me how to do this i also need to program it into a stand-alone circuit if someone could help me with that as well. i've ordered my arduino and i'm expecting it soon i was hoping to get started as soon as i get it. any input is appreciated
Well the first project just about all of do is the blink example (http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink). There are two delays in the code, the first delay is how long the LED is lit, and the second delay is how long light is off. A usual way to tune the two delays is bring up the code in the IDE, just change the values, and reload it to the Arduino.
The next step might be to attach two potentiometers to two analog inputs and use the values the potentiometers return to feed the two delays in blink. That way you can change the values just by turning/sliding the potentiometers. This tutorial shows how to read a potentiometer: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogReadSerial.