Arduino Tutorial 20: Understanding RGB LED's 

I have been following your tutorials since 2016, and I have never realized until now that you are the person that sparks my curiosity. You teach me computer programming, mathematics, electronics, and the science of how things work. Looking back, I can see how much I know because of you. Paul, you are the greatest teacher I ever have and for that, I just want to say thank you. And I can't wait for the 9-axis sensor tutorial. :)

Thanks for the shout out for the UK viewers, there seems to be quite a few of us. Keep up the good work PW

Remember to have the serial monitor set for "No Line Ending "

Most excellent "behavioUr" for the English spelling!

20 lessons in, and "hook a brother up" still makes me grin from ear to ear. ^o^

Hi Paul, thanks for the arduino lessons, I've never had a better teacher ! I am a retired electronics engineer , and enjoy the modern arduino applications , thanks to you! Peter, Belgium

Im British and enjoying you lessons !!

I made it to tutorial 20! I'm really good about getting excited about something then quickly losing interest. I'm proud of myself! There is nothing more exciting then starting a fresh new lesson (with my black iced coffee) and pulling something new out of my kit! Never thought in a million years I'd be spending my Saturday nights doing something like this but I've never been happier!

I deeply appreciate the 'u' in 'colour.' More than you could ever know. Thanks, Paul.

For anyone who is working through this most excellent tutorial - please make sure you adjust your Serial input to "No line ending" otherwise the conditional statements here won't fire. Aside from that, this is 10/10 awesome! Thank you Paul McWhorter! :)

"Boom" learned some more. Love the UK shout out with "colour"

If you are going to use analogWrite be sure to use a pin port that has a "~" next to it

I have spent two days trying to make this work. My serial monitor wasn’t set to “no line ending” . Now it works!!!

you've done me a great favour by spelling colour courectly. great episode!

Thanks for including us Australians with the spelling of colour. A great series of tutorials.

Hello ! I was very curious to know about this 4-legged LED and I played along with it for a while. I went through the color charts and made CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW, WHITE followed by the basic RED , GREEN , BLUE colors. Further out of my curiosity I did a little experiment with 3 potentiometers and the RGB LED. It worked well and I made other beautiful colors such as LAVENDER and ORANGE. Thank you so much for teaching me the fundamentals so well. Blessed to be learning from you!

I took a break from Arduino, but I am really happy that I started doing this again. You are the best.

Thank you very much for the shout out Paul. I decided to use your parseInt stuff so I could manually set the brightness for my program.

I have been following the lessons and BOOM I have a much better understanding of programming. What has helped is the fact that mistakes are made, whether intentional or unintentional, and that is where I have gained the most because so many are similar to what I've done. Thanks for the lively and informative tuition. I am especially looking forward to reading to and from LCDs. I hope that is in the programme.

I did your homework task, then I created three counters and created a light that changes colour constantly, SO COOL!! Thanks so much, I've made it to Tutorial 20 and I'm still LOVING IT!!!

A little remark, to people who might have problems with the diode lighting up. In my case I had to change the condition statements (starting with "if") from f.e.: " if (myColour == "red") ", to " if (myColour == "red ") ", because the Arduino IDE had some problems with interpretation of the new line after each question. Mr. McWorther, your channel was recommended to me by a good friend of mine. I really do love and enjoy your Arduino Tutorial. Please never lose your passion to teaching and your spirit. I am looking forward to watching your future videos ^^.

Hi Mr. Paul ,❣️You From "The India" Your Videos are really Amazing 😍

RGB BOOM! I decided for my project to use three for loops to make the LED cycle through all the possible colors. It's pretty nice to watch.

I've been following this series and playing along, I am eager to learn more and I'm having so much fun! You're the best teacher ever!

“Colour” for us Aussies too. Thank you so much for all these tutorials. The absolute best and easiest to follow.

I sit and played with these assignment colours... Loved it! Thanks Paul!

I would move to Texas just to take a class with him. I LOVE THIS SERIES!

Mr. Paul McWhorter is the best teacher ever! God bless

As a Canadian, I appreciate the spelling of "colour". These tutorials are brilliant btw!

Hi Paul, Thanks for the wave to the British :-) Loving the course. Stay safe.

I got sloppy on this one and powered a few of the LEDs with digital pins. Some of the colors worked but the ones that needed one to be dimmed did not work right. After putting them all on the analog outputs they worked great. After 20 episodes I'm still here. 48 more to go! These are awesome videos!

It just gets easier! I will now read through the comments before each lesson.

Thanks for the shout out, watching from the UK working my way through this series.

Paul McWorthers teaching is so intriguing that i started the combination of lights even before he mentioned it!

Had issues with this once I started adding the extra colors (the assignment). Realized that pin 8 wasn't an analog pin! Once I switched the pins to 9, 10, and 11, everything worked perfectly!! Hope I'm not spoiling the next lesson for anyone!! I also like adding all "case" versions of the word. Silly since it'll just be me typing in the Serial Monitor, but I guess I'm a little OCD too!! HAHA! Another good lesson Paul!!

As someone who learned Canadian English, the "colour" spelling was appreciated! Thanks for the tutorial as always.

This is my second time following along with these videos but i changed up the last lesson and used the RGB LED and i added purple to the color options.

I can see "new", I can see "improved", but never "new and improved". Can't be done as it is either new or improved. Not both. These are "most excellent" tutorials. Easy to understand and I'm seeing new things and improving my base. Thanks for these.

Guys! If the leds aren’t turning on, try turning your serial monitor to no line ending. Hope this helps!

As a Canadian thank you for using Colour ;)

Paul when you say Hold your breath and let see and then say, Boom. This is such a exciting moment to catch your excitment to see your magic. I am new. Just begin to learn. I become so excited when you do to us in your every new project. Thank you.

The extent Mr. McWhorter goes to teach us is a delight

Just thought about how to make the RGB LED cycle between ROY-G-BIV! I had problems with it flickering initially, but I realized that it's because I allowed the values to reach zero (off) and then turn back on at full brightness. There's all the colours for you and then some Paul! Thanks for being a great teacher. Without your lessons I probably wouldn't have even thought about how to do this! int red_pin = 9; int green_pin = 10; int blue_pin = 11; int red_val; int green_val; int blue_val; int delayTime = 5; void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once: Serial.begin(9600); pinMode(red_pin,OUTPUT); pinMode(green_pin,OUTPUT); pinMode(blue_pin,OUTPUT); } void loop() { // put your main code here, to run repeatedly: for (red_val == 255; green_val < 255; green_val += 1) { analogWrite(green_pin,green_val); delay(delayTime); } for (green_val == 255; red_val > 1; red_val -= 1) { analogWrite(red_pin,red_val); delay(delayTime); } for (red_val == 1; blue_val < 255; blue_val += 1) { analogWrite(blue_pin,blue_val); delay(delayTime); } for (blue_val == 255; green_val > 1; green_val -= 1) { analogWrite(green_pin,green_val); delay(delayTime); } for (green_val == 1; red_val < 255; red_val += 1) { analogWrite(red_pin,red_val); delay(delayTime); } for (red_val == 255; blue_val > 1; blue_val -= 1) { analogWrite(blue_pin,blue_val); delay(delayTime); } }

Love the series Paul. I don't have an Arduino as yet but am following. Thanks for the "U" in colour. We spell it that way in Oz. When I get my Ardi I'll do all of the lessons on it. You have an excellent (most excellent?) incremental teaching style. Thanks so much for your work in doing these.

Thank you very much for an amazing lesson! Had so much fun with the ping-pong ball, and when I turned the light off:"Boom!" It looked great! Changed redPin to ~6. Assignment is completed, but Orange doesn't look really well, although I checked in the internet. Looking forward to the next lessons!

Thank You for not editing out your errors. More importantly, Thank You for talking out loud while you troubleshoot them. I usually pick something up that I did not know/think of from what you said out loud!

You had me going on the red led on the homework. I couldn't trim the red for some reason. Finally figured it out.

Whew... this one went WAY better than lesson 19. I paused the video and went and coded the exercise (I did glance back at the code for 19 a couple of times) and it worked! I even added a fourth if which lets people know if they entered an unavailable color.

I have been learning all your lessons and doing all the homework so far and it is awesome! I'm from Canada so we use "colour" here. Thanks for all the lessons so far.

Paul, I learned one hell of a lesson! I typed in my code and built my circuit before looking at yours. After debugging the normal stuff, it compiled but would not work. I would type in the color, but no LED would light. I tested the circuit to 5V, and the LEDs lit. I went over the code and it matched yours exactly, except for the variable names. After going over it for nearly an hour, I retyped the code, without using copy and paste. Still the same thing. It turned out to be I did not have "no line ending" selected in the serial monitor. I had remembered you mentioning this in a previous video. Thanks! Love your videos. Geoff Jung

After doing this tutorial. I made a blinking light with different kinds of colours. it was a long code and its all worth it! I'm very happy!

Hi Paul, thanks for spelling Colour correctly 😀. Also id like to thank you for sharing your time and knowledge in these most excellent videos.

Thank you @FuNkTOID for pointing out adjust your Serial input to "No line ending" , Spent 3 days trying to figure it out, as well as buying a new Arduino board. After that, everything was good :))

Another Brit here loving the acknowledgment and the Arduino Tutorials in general. Thank you 😁😁

G'Day Mate I am loving the tutorial and especially love how you set homework so we can try and figure things out by our selves in small bites. can't wait to continue through the series you have put together.

I'm British (from Bristol, England). I appreciate the "Colour" gesture, thank you.

Just started watching this series yesterday. I greatly appreciated the "U" in colour! Thanks for the lessons, they've been very helpful for understanding micro-controller code. Cheers from the UK.

I had a ton of fun playing with the colors!

Thank you for the 'u', like everything else in your lessons it’s very much appreciated. I think I'll solder my first board and keep this one.

I literally loved playing with analogRead commands in RGB. That was freakishly interesting. Thank you Grand Pa!

Some times want to scroll up and fix things. Great lessons.

Ok Paul I'm 20 videos deep you are a fantastic teacher! When you say in the other video 'I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.' I yelled back at my monitor 'I'm here and I'm loving it Paul!'. OK I'm a little bit strange sometimes, I've been home due to COVID for a week and I'm starting to go crazy, yelling at youtube videos. All the same I just wanted to say how enjoyable this has been thus far and I can't wait to be with you to the end! I'll be on your Raspberry Pi videos next I suspect.

Good lesson. I messed up the brackets after the "if" statements which made a mess of the LEDs lighting up but once I figured that out it worked like a charm. Thanks for a great lesson.

i had a common cathode but ive figured it out by looking at circuit diagrams online. used what i learned here to make it work!

Quick Tip: If you get tired of switching off all the other LEDs in every if statement, just switch of all the LEDs off at the end or at the beginning, and put a _delay_ statement before doing this so that people may get a chance to view the LED state before!

You are a great teacher Mr McWhorter.

Love your tutorials.. and love the orange shirt :) Thank you so much

Hi Paul! GREAT LESSONS, thank you!!! Here in Canada, we also use colour. Color while gaining popularity is, at this point, American only.

I loved being able to play around and get just the color I thought matched the colors asked for, the values suggested online were way off to my eye!. Thanks for the lesson, Paul!

Mr. McWorther, thank you for another amazing lesson, I did the code as well here Is mine int rPin=12; int gPin=8; int bPin=7; String ledColour; int dt=1000; String error="You didn't write an option, please try again."; String msg="What colour led do you want?"; void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once: Serial.begin(9600); pinMode(rPin,OUTPUT); pinMode(bPin,OUTPUT); pinMode(gPin,OUTPUT); } void loop() { // put your main code here, to run repeatedly: Serial.println(msg); while(Serial.available()==0){ } ledColour=Serial.readString(); if(ledColour=="Blue"||ledColour=="blue"){ digitalWrite(bPin,HIGH); digitalWrite(gPin,LOW); digitalWrite(rPin,LOW); } if(ledColour=="Green"||ledColour=="green"){ digitalWrite(bPin,LOW); digitalWrite(gPin,HIGH); digitalWrite(rPin,LOW); } if(ledColour=="Red"||ledColour=="red"){ digitalWrite(bPin,LOW); digitalWrite(gPin,LOW); digitalWrite(rPin,HIGH); } if(ledColour=="Off"||ledColour=="off"){ digitalWrite(bPin,LOW); digitalWrite(gPin,LOW); digitalWrite(rPin,LOW); } if(ledColour!="Green"&&ledColour!="green"&&ledColour!="Blue"&&ledColour!="blue"&&ledColour!="Red"&&ledColour!="red"&&ledColour!="Off"&&ledColour!="off"){ Serial.println(error); } delay(dt); }

So very nice of you to acknowledge us 'Brits". Superb videos ! Insightful and fun. I'm working my way through them all. Fantastic you're digging deeper with important theory. At 58 (and RR aero-engine mechanical engineer), I didn't know a resistor from an LED. Your teaching method is totally engaging. Kudos to you sir. While I'm tapping, and at the risk of being one of those 'wise guys' SOS is souls not ships. 😄. I'm sure i'm not the only smart ass. Greetings from 🇬🇧 ...

Wow! that was a difficult one, really struggled to get the yellow, but it was a great tutorial, thanks Paul.

you gave us the best concept about RGB and how to use it with Arduino..Many thanks to you :-)

Hey Paul. You doing a great job. I'm not always logged in. But i'm doing my "homework". and following you step by step..

The last couple videos about user interaction were a lot of fun, but this program is just too much fun, in addition to your assignment I think I'll have to add a few dozen more colors. Thanks and God bless!

British learner here, appreciate the UK shout out (Canada and NZ do it too tho!), as well as the course in general

One of the Best courses in RU-vid Ever!

Turns out the RGB LED in my kit was a common anode! I got there in the end though. Fun lesson.

Hello, fellow Briton. I would just like to say well done to everyone for getting this far in the course and keep up the good work Paul.

Thanks Paul. Learning a lot. greetings from New Zealand

Thanks for the shout out (To the brits ) lovin your work !!!

Enjoyed lessons 19 and 20.

Wow!! I'm loving this, Paul! Thank you!

paused at 2:03 in search of a ping-pong ball...

Thanks for the shout out Paul. Totally enjoying your very entertaining and colourful course. From Colchester in the UK

Really kind of you to give the Brits a nod! We're struggling at the moment with all the division over here - a bit of unity is appreciated.

Luv how interactive you are with the viewers, still I have to turn down the volume for every "BOOOM" haha. Luv from Egypt sir.

Great lesson, it puts into perspective the 255 value(s) of color mixing in most programs.

Added Mauve (RGB 197, 140, 157) Color option because this is such a 'Mauvelous' Arduino Video ... Well Done. Having a lot of fun learning from the Tutorials.

i still love the way he says "BOOM"

Learning to add your nuggets together. I designed a simple project that dims a blue (oooh special) led using a potentiometer. It then lights a red, yellow or green LED if safe (0-3V), warn (>=3-4V),or red if >4V. If >4V, the system "shuts down", killing the blue LED and lighting the Red. You then need to freduce the voltage and press the reset button to restart. Simple in the real world, but cool for a newbie like me...

Yes got the shout out I'm in England UK. THANK YOU Paul

super excited! My Elegoo kit finally arrived - just in the nic of time as I didn't have an RGB LED in my possession....Kit looks great!

Omg thank you so much its been driving me insane watching you spell colour as color after so many episodes it started to feel like I'd been spelling it wrong my whole life haha

I absolutely love your tutorials. I’ve been following you all the way up to lesson 20 (that’s where I’m currently at) I’ve been saving all of the sketches we do and once I finally understand what we’re doing. I go in and tweak it and see if I can’t get it to do what I want it to do. I’m gonna start commenting more. The math is very important too.

This lesson is basically like the last one I just replaced the 3 separate LEDS with the RGB LED. I do not have a small ball like that, I tried using paper and other items but I see where the RGB LED would have uses. Thank you Paul, when I get a ball like that I will come back to this one make different colors.

I had a lot of fun creating colours with this one. I used a "while" statement to have the blue and red Led's blink alternatively. Any character sent to serial input turns the blinking off. Thanks for these tutorials.

I have rewritten this program 5 times. Rebuilt this circuit 10 times. Watched the video 25 times. Only to find out about "No line ending" from the comment section. Thanks to the comment section!!!! And Paul

This was a nice one, thank you for the mixing of colours.

I had lots of fun on this one. Thank you Mr. Mcwhorter. Great lesson.