Arduino : Controlling PL9823-F8 RGB LED

I have great passion about electronics since I was in middle school then high school. With some of my school friend that has same passion in electronics, we built radio transmitter so we can communicate each other at anytime. It was so cool back then. Thats why I took study on electrical Engineering. Instead of working on Electrical engineering field, I end up become web programmer. Something I found interesting when i was in college.

That's old story. But lately I get bored and try to get another hobby. I have many hobbies and creating electronics stuff is one of it.

So I bought my self Arduino Uno and few electronic components to get started learning Arduino programming. So my first project is controlling RGB Led. Here what you need:

1. Arduino Uno with usb data cable and Arduino IDE
2. Install Adafruit Neopixel library
3. 3 PL9823 RGB led
4. Breadboard
5. Jumper cables (mostly male to male)

First you need to install Arduino IDE. You can download it here.  That would depend on your operating system. I have Mac OS X version installed. Here what we have after installation.

Install Adafruit Neopixel library. From Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries and click install then restart IDE. You will need internet connection to  do it.

For RGB led, I use PL9823. Download the datasheet here. Make sure you have correct pinout connected to each other and power source. If not you will burn your LED and not usable anymore. Below is correct pin according to datasheet.

Check the breadboard wiring below.

These RGB led are common cathode. Which mean the long led pin will be connected to ground. DIN first led connected to pin 6 Arduino digital output pin. Then DO will be connected to another DIN led and perform led strip. 

Power up your Arduino by inserting the USD cable data to the computer. Configure port and board type. Download my sketch for this here then run and upload to Arduino.

Here is the demo:

Interesting right! I'll upload and post another article of my learning on Arduino. Good luck and Happy hacking!

Resources Link:

1. PL9823 Datasheet: http://www.led-genial.de/mediafiles//Sonstiges/PL9823.pdf
2. Adafruit Neopixel Library: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide/arduino-library
3. Adafruit Neopixel Library Github: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_NeoPixel
4. Sketch File: https://github.com/satujamsaja/Arduino/blob/master/pl9832.txt