User Manual

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Component Introduction

RGB:

At first glance, RGB (Red, Green and Blue) LEDs look just like regular LEDs. However,

inside the usual LED package, there are actually three LEDs, one red, one green and

yes, one blue. By controlling the brightness of each of the individual LEDs you can

mix pretty much any color you want.

We mix colors the same way you would mix paint on a palette - by adjusting the

brightness of each of the three LEDs. The hard way to do this would be to use

different value resistors (or variable resistors) as we did with in Lesson 2, but that's

a lot of work! Fortunately for us, MEGA2560 R3 board has an analogWrite function

that you can use with pins marked with a ~ to output a variable amount of power to

the appropriate LEDs.

The RGB LED has four leads. There is one lead going to the positive connection of

each of the single LEDs within the package and a single lead that is connected to all

three negative sides of the LEDs.