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An orange LED near the center of the board (labeled “Pin 13 LED” in the image below) should flash on and off when the board is powered up (boards come from the factory preloaded with software to flash the LED as a simple check that the board is working).
Basic Arduino board (Uno and Duemilanove)
If the power LED does not illuminate when the board is connected to your computer, the board is probably not receiving power.
The flashing LED (connected to digital output pin 13) is being controlled by code running on the board (new boards are preloaded with the Blink example sketch). If the pin 13 LED is flashing, the sketch is running correctly, which means the chip on the board is working. If the green power LED is on but the pin 13 LED is not flashing, it could be that the factory code is not on the chip. If you are not using a standard board, it may not have a built-in LED on pin 13, so check the documentation for details of your board.
Online guides for getting started with Arduino are available at http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows for Windows, http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/MacOSX for Mac OS X, and http://www.arduino.c.../Learning/Linux for Linux.
A troubleshooting guide can be found at http://arduino.cc/en...Troubleshooting.
Learn more about this topic from Arduino Cookbook.
Create your own robots, toys, remote controllers, alarms, detectors, and many other projects with the Arduino device. This simple microcontroller board lets artists and designers build a variety of amazing objects and prototypes that interact with the physical world. With this book, you can dive right in and experiment with more than a hundred tips and techniques, no matter what your skill level is. You'll find the examples and advice you need to begin, expand, and enhance your projects right away.
