Free Project - 245 LED Display

[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.

[skimask]

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.

We all 'sincerily' need help...but...100,000+ different things can cause this to fail...
Wiring faults (go over 100 times and you still miss that ONE wire that's wrong, programmer faults, etc.etc...
But for one...I see the cap's in the cluster still haven't moved nearer to the chips like suggested earlier!!!

[magu]

tell me pls what capacitor do i ha\ve to place and where?

[T.Jackson]

tell me pls what capacitor do i ha\ve to place and where?

The caps are the least of your worry. What about the LEDs? You've used common diffused 5mcd types, these won't be bright enough. I clearly made mention of this several times in the article and on the schematic. Unfortunately, I feel, you've bitten off more than you can chew.