Technological advances have advanced to the point that they allow you to carry out activities about which you do not have much knowledge, but which you actually like. Such is the case of the development of Arduinos, which are high-level embedded electronic boards that emerged to provide solutions to people with little knowledge of electronics and programming .
However, it will always be useful for you to know the basics about the Arduino environment , because that way you will have a better vision of these boards and what you can do with them. In this post, we’ll show you what Arduino digital inputs and outputs are and how they work.
Arduino Applications
There are various applications that you can give to each of these Arduino boards, and among other things, you can control different systems (Industrial, home automation, home) to obtain desired results, without the need to be present and monitor the system.
For this you must make use of modules attached to these boards that contain sensors, relays and other elements that help to control and deliver the necessary power to engines, valves, pistons, locks, among others.
Among the applications that may interest you, you have, for example, the development of your smart home using devices such as the Arduino and home automation. However, to develop a home automation system you will have to deepen your knowledge of communication networks and topologies , as well as electronics and programming.
Arduino board connection pins
In addition to the common power pins of the Arduino board that are 5 V and GND , you will have several pins available that you can use as inputs and outputs according to your needs. At this point you will see that you will find digital inputs and analog inputs, this is where the ingenuity of the creators of these systems comes, since they left the designation of certain pins free so that you can use them as you see fit.
The pins or most of them can be used as inputs and outputs, in this article we will be dealing with the digital signal, which are based on the representation of logical 1 or 0 . In other words, a logic 1 represents the appearance of 5 V on that pin, if it is used as an output, it will deliver 5 V and if it is used as an input, then it will receive 5 V.
The opposite case occurs with the logical 0, since it does not receive or deliver voltage on that pin. Now, to clarify these terms you need to think of a simple system, for example a lighting circuit .
In it, you will have a switch, cables and at least one electric lamp; In this case, the Switch represents the input, since with it you decide whether to turn the lamp on or off, while the lamp is the output, since it only turns on or off depending on the order received from the Switch. One of the first experiences you can have with these boards is to learn how to turn on LED strips with Arduino .
How to set the pins as digital inputs or outputs on Arduino
The first step before setting the pins as digital inputs and outputs on the Arduino boards is to download the Arduino software from the official website , because in it you can make the relevant adjustments to set the pins of your board as inputs or outputs digital. Once the software is downloaded, you must proceed to install and open it, then follow these steps:
- Create a new program and put the name you want
- Start the definitions in “void setup” to set the pins as inputs or outputs (Depending on the type of board you have purchased, you will see that you will have a greater or lesser number of inputs and outputs)
- In general, the word pinMode (x, Input) or pinMode (x, Output) defines the pin as an input or an output. Note that the letter “x” determines the pin number to which you will assign as input or output.
Finally, you should know that these boards take more strength and presence every day in the field of development of applications of various natures , so you could expand your knowledge by visiting the official Arduino page and strengthening the information that we have provided.
