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Lesson 28: RGB LED Module

In this lesson, you will learn how to control an RGB LED with Arduino. We’ll cover setting up the LED and then delve into displaying primary colors and creating a vibrant rainbow spectrum. This hands-on project is ideal for beginners, providing practical experience with output operations and color mixing in the Arduino environment.

Required Components

In this project, we need the following components.

It’s definitely convenient to buy a whole kit, here’s the link:

Name	ITEMS IN THIS KIT	LINK
Universal Maker Sensor Kit	94	Universal Maker Sensor Kit

You can also buy them separately from the links below.

Component Introduction	Purchase Link
Arduino UNO R3 or R4	BUY
RGB LED Module	-

Wiring

Code

Code Analysis

1. The first segment of the code declares and initializes the pins to which each color channel of the RGB LED module is connected.

   const int rledPin = 9;  // pin connected to the red color channel
   const int gledPin = 10;   // pin connected to the green color channel
   const int bledPin = 11;  // pin connected to the blue color channel
   

2. The setup() function initializes these pins as OUTPUT. This means we are sending signals OUT from these pins to the RGB LED module.

   void setup() {
     pinMode(rledPin, OUTPUT);
     pinMode(gledPin, OUTPUT);
     pinMode(bledPin, OUTPUT);
   }
   

3. In the loop() function, the setColor() function is called with different parameters to display different colors. The delay() function is used after setting each color to pause for 1000 milliseconds (or 1 second) before moving on to the next color.

   void loop() {
     setColor(255, 0, 0);  // Set RGB LED color to red
     delay(1000);
     setColor(0, 255, 0);  // Set RGB LED color to green
     delay(1000);
     // The rest of the color sequence...
   }
   

4. The setColor() function uses the analogWrite() function to adjust the brightness of each color channel on the RGB LED module. The analogWrite() function employs Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to simulate varying voltage outputs. By controlling the PWM duty cycle (the percentage of time a signal is HIGH within a fixed period), the brightness of each color channel can be controlled, allowing the mixing of various colors.

   void setColor(int R, int G, int B) {
     analogWrite(rledPin, R);  // Use PWM to control the brightness of the red color channel
     analogWrite(gledPin, G);  // Use PWM to control the brightness of the green color channel
     analogWrite(bledPin, B);  // Use PWM to control the brightness of the blue color channel
   }