You might ask. What is a Netduino? Netduino is an electronics prototyping platform based on the .NET Micro Framework. Yes, you can use C# and Visual Studio to develop!
To understand how Netduino works we are going to build a traffic lights. I suggest that first you install the .NET Micro Framework on your PC from the following link: http://www.netduino.com/downloads/
For this project we need:
- Netduino 2 (duh…)
- Wires
- Breadboard
- 3 * 47 Ω (resistors)
- 1 Red LED
- 1 Green LED
- 1 Amber LED
One bought the wires, breadboard, resistors and the LEDs from: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121296151553?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT. The Netduino 2 from: https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/netduino-plus-2-net-c-development-board.html
Ok let’s start…
A solderless breadboard is a construction base for prototyping of electronics and it does not require soldering thus making it reusable. The following video explains better how breadboards work and how to attach resistors and LEDs:
Now that you have a better understanding of how to use a breadboard, we can start building our traffic lights. Finally!
Wire the external LEDs and the resistors as shown in the pictures below:
In the code below you will notice that one has defined three Output Ports. One port is for our green LED and is set for digital Pin 0. The second port is our amber LED and is set for digital Pin 1. The third port is our red LED and is set for digital Pin 3. One is also using the Interrupt Port which is the button on the Netduino. When the button is pressed, the traffic light will change it’s state like in the diagram below.
The Output port supports a method named ‘Write’ which accepts a Boolean value. When a ‘true’ value is passed our concerned LED will light up and vice versa. The ‘Thread.Sleep’ command is used to pause the traffic light from changing it’s state quickly.
Here is the final result:
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