I finished soldering everything, and my board wont light up at all. First and foremost I only soldered one LED to check if everything was wired correctly and nothing happened. I tried to run the cube program and it says avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00. Can someone tell me what is going on? I am really new at Electronics, but not that new...


Thanks

I also checked the power to the Atmega and it is reading 5 volts...if that clears up anything...

It's generally a good idea to get everything working first, before trying to reprogram it-- that way at least you know that the chip is programmed correctly.

There are quite a few things that need to be set up correctly for a given individual LED to light up. My first recommendation would be that you finish assembling the Peggy first, before trying to debug it-- certain rows won't light at all when first turned on, depending on how you have it configured, and certain minor bugs here and there can also turn off individual rows or columns until you figure out where the bad connection was. More generally, you need to make sure that the power and ground connections are good to the chip, that the LED driver chips and demultiplexers are in the right places (and correctly oriented) and that the oscillator is installed, and so forth.

I actually had the Peggy 2 fully assembled. I just wired two LEDs in the uppermost right corner, triple checked all my soldering joints, placed all the LED driver chips and de-multiplexers correctly as well. I just wanted to see if those two LEDs would light up. I tried to program it at first, after it was fully assembled to see if that's what you are supposed to do to test the LEDs. I tested them prior to soldering as well and they were fine. There isn't a clear instruction as to what to initially do after you are finished assembling as to just plug in the power cable, or the power cable and FTDI cable, or whether you need to program something for the LEDs to light up initially.

The power and ground is reading 5 volts to the chip, and I have triple checked all my connections on the back and front and still no light...

So after some struggle, colums 16-24 are lighting up at 3 volts, but no power to the other columns. I have 5 volts across the LED drivers, demultiplexer, and atmega...any suggestions?

colums 16-24 are lighting up at 3 volts, but no power to the other columns.

Those two column sets (left and right) are controlled by the two LED driver chips. Try swapping the two LED driver chips, to see if the other half of the LEDs light now. If so, then one of the LED chips has been damaged, and will need to be replaced. If not, then check the connections around the other LED driver chip.

There isn't a clear instruction as to what to initially do after you are finished assembling as to just plug in the power cable, or the power cable and FTDI cable, or whether you need to program something for the LEDs to light up initially.

If you only had two LEDs, you probably hadn't finished assembling it.

As (I believe) it says in the instructions, the initial program is designed to light up all the LEDs, but that's only true if you have chosen the P2 assembly option. If you choose the SER option, some of the upper rows won't light until you have reprogrammed it. Generally speaking, it's quite difficult to debug if you've only inserted a few LEDs, so we do encourage people to finish first.

Thanks, it seems to be working now. The LEDs are lighting up at 3 volts. It was my understanding that we didn't have to use the whole 625 LED set up but could use a few, I understand now, thanks! As for my brightness that is a whole nother story that I will inquire as to when I reach that point!

As far as only 16-24 lighting up, it seems one of my LED driver sockets had broken slots...3 holes, aka no way to grasp the Driver Pin.

Thanks Windell

>it seems one of my LED driver sockets had broken slots

Yikes! How did you get it working?

>The LEDs are lighting up at 3 volts.

The LEDs are driven at constant current (during their active phases) not voltage; you won't learn anything with a multimeter. Please see our FAQ about Peggy, for a whole lot of things to think about: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=2979

As per the 3 broken slots, I really don't know but all the LEDs are turning on. Not at full brightness but clearly visible.



I will check out that link,


Regards