Make a full colour moving message display with just an Arduino pin! – Library for controlling WS2812 RGM LEDS

To compliment two of our latest product releases we have now released a brand new Arduino library for controlling WS2812 based RGB LED products. You can check out the following compatible products for this library on our website here: Digitally controlled 8x RGB LED Light Strip (HCMODU0075) Flexible Digitally Controlled RGB LED strips (HCOPTO0028) Using…

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HCMAX7219 Library update – Now you can create a moving dot matrix display!

We’ve now updated our HCMAX7219 led driver library to support serial dot matrix displays such as our dot matrix module shown in the above image. The library supports multiple drivers connected in series and a built-in alphanumeric font to make displaying text and numbers simple. With the new added commands it is easy to make a…

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Arduino: Demystifying the blink sketch for the absolute beginner

So you’ve taken the plunge… You’ve decided to buy yourself an Arduino development board. You’ve figured out how to get the development environment installed and you’ve even managed to download the example blink sketch that most getting started tutorials will point you towards (http://blog.hobbycomponents.com/?p=51). This sketch is meant to be as simple a program as possible…

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Access your microcontroller from anywhere in the world for a few pounds (Part 1 of 3)

Access your microcontroller from anywhere in the world (Part 1) Microcontrollers are an amazingly cheap way to automate and control the world around you, but in a world where a Wi-Fi connection is available almost anywhere it has not always been as proportionally cheap to get your microcontroller project connected to the outside world. That…

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