Free Project - 245 LED Display

[Dan Cata]

Dear Trent, i have recently installed Win XP on my comp and copyed MSCOMM32.OCX in sys32 (VB not installed) ; the aplication runs but when i press "program messege to eeprom" button, i get an Communications error "Port already in use or doesn't exist ; Chose a different port " but the com1 is free; what do i do?

[T.Jackson]

Apart from suggesting that you try another comm port, it's hard-to-say because everything works fine on my end. I have Win XP with service pack 2. If there was a problem MSCOMM32.OCX, the program wouldn't run at all. So you can rule that out.

[magu]

I have build my led matrix from the start to finish. and i have some problems... I finaly programmmeed the PIC and when i connect the 5V and the 12V and the Serial Port, and when i bush the button for program LED it doesen`t stay ON (lighting).I start the VB program to sent EEPROM the informations but when finished nothing happens. I have a link with the sheme that i construct... i hope you can help me... THX.. I will wait for your answer.

http://www.zamfirelu.org/lm.jpg

[precision]

What is this ?
Why you mount all 14 capacitor in one place ? and there are no capacitor between PIC's VCC and GND.


.

[T.Jackson]

I'm getting emails left right & center from people telling me about their problems with this thing. It's not a simple project - in my opinion, it requires the constructor to have some sort of formal background with electronics. If you build it, you've gotta be prepared to fault find your mistakes, because you will make them, there's a lot of wires & parts and a whole range of silly little errors that could occur.

By the way, I noticed on your photograph of the board that all the 0.1uf decoupling caps are banked up together ??? They actually need to be placed as close as possible to the power connections of each chip. (That's why there's so many of them, one for each chip) Knowing this sort of thing is relatively basic electronics and if you aren't aware of simple things like this then I highly discourage you from building it. Sorry - the truth hurts.

[skimask]

Knowing this sort of thing is relatively basic electronics and if you aren't aware of simple things like this then I highly discourage you from building it. Sorry - the truth hurts.

Abso-tively Poso-lutely....the sequence should be: One blinky LED, then 245...

But, we all know, it usually starts the other way around...

245 non-blinky LEDs, then back to one non-blinky LED, then on to one blinky LED, then, and only then, do you get 245 blinky LEDs...(well, maybe a few extra steps in between)...

[T.Jackson]

When I've got some spare time I might write an article describing "basic" electronics and trouble shooting. So anyone that's having difficulty with the project, just put it aside until you've had a chance to read the article. It'll be a while though, I'm actually a full time student at the moment struggling to do a 4yr degree in information technology.

[magu]

Tell me pls a the possible problem that the board doesen`t work. I connect the entire wires to the pics and capacitor, diodes and rezistors; i change the pic over 3 times, the eeprom 2 times but doesen`t work... i sincerily i need some help.