**Connecting an LED to a Raspberry Pi**
To connect an LED to a Raspberry Pi, we need to make sure that we connect it to the correct pins. The longest lead on the LED goes to the positive pin (Pin 19), and the shortest lead goes to the negative pin. This is because Pin 19 is set as the positive pin for the LED in our config.txt file.
If you want to make this more permanent, you can solder the LED directly to the wires instead of clipping off the leads on the end near the LED. This will ensure that the connection is secure and won't come loose over time. However, if you're not comfortable with soldering, clipping off the leads is a good alternative.
**Editing the Config.txt File**
To edit the config.txt file, we need to access it through our computer. We can do this by inserting our SD card into our PC using a USB card reader or by using the port on a laptop to find the drive that's labeled "boot". Inside of there, we want to open up the config.txt file using Notepad++. We can download Notepad++ from various websites and install it safely.
Here is the text file that I left in the description, which you can copy and paste into your config.txt file:
[LED]
pin = 19
This sets Pin 19 as the positive pin for our LED. If you want to change this number, make sure to refer to a chart of the GPIO layout on the Pi 3. You cannot just count down from Pin 4 without checking the correct layout.
Once we've edited the file, we can save it and shut everything down. Then, we'll plug the SD card back into the Raspberry Pi, hook up our LED to the correct pins (Pin 19 positive and negative), and boot it up.
**Testing the LED**
When we start up the Raspberry Pi, we should see a couple of flashes out of the green LED on the board as soon as it reads the config.txt file. Our new LED will be working as an activity light, flashing whenever it writes or reads this information. This feature works in conjunction with a safe shutdown switch or a safe reset switch and can even run them from the same ground.
For example, if we set up our SD card to only include a few ROMs, every time we load a snap, it needs to read the card, so we get a quick flash out of it. When we load a game, you'll get some flashing as well. I just loaded up a NeoGEO game and showed that this feature works even with small files.
**Using the LED as an Activity Light**
I also want to show you what the LED does when you shut down. I'll press Start in the emulation station menu, and it will flash while shutting down. However, the LED on the board will still do the last 10 flashes for the shutdown process. This is a great feature that makes our Raspberry Pi stand out.
I'm going to demonstrate this by fast-forwarding through the boot-up process because it takes a little bit of time. That's it! If you want to add this super simple feature to your own project, I really appreciate you guys watching. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.
**The Monitor**
I also want to mention that I used a very expensive but great monitor for this video - the 5V 1080p IPS monitor from Amazon. It's got some amazing features and is definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new monitor.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on guys this ETA prime back here again today I want to show you how to add an external activity led to your Raspberry Pi 3 really simple to do you don't need to solder anything so if you've ever looked at a Raspberry Pi 3 while it's running there are two lights here red light and a green light for activity it'll show you when it's reading or writing to the SD card today we're gonna add an external LED this is great for case mods and things like that it just adds a little extra to whatever you're doing some people might not be into it but I think it's a cool idea and it's really simple to do so this method requires using two GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 now it only puts out a maximum of 3.3 volts so pretty much any LED will work without a resistor these here are 5 volt LEDs I got them on Amazon I'll leave links to everything I'm using here I'm just gonna go with the blue it's easier to see you can use any color you want now when we're looking at these LEDs here the longest lead on the LED will always be positive the shorter ones gonna be negative this is important to take note of but it won't hurt anything if you swap them around it just won't light up the next thing you're gonna want to get your hands on are some GPIO jumpers or wire jumpers they're named all kinds of stuff on the internet I'll leave a link these are female-to-female you don't need to solder anything if you're going this method so first things first we want to connect a ground wire so there are a bunch of ground leads here on the GPIO header I'm gonna be using the last one here and I'm going to be connecting my positive to pin 19 now you can swap this out in the config dot txt but for this tutorial I'm using 19 I will be leaving a text file down below in the description you can download it and make it really easy to copy and paste but it is set for pin 19 on the positive now all we need to do is connect our led the longest lead on the LED goes to positive the shortest one goes to negative and that's it for the wiring if you want to make this more permanent you might want to solder the led to the end you'll just clip off the two leads on the end near the LED and directly to the wires now we need to move over to the computer you can do this on the PI but I'm gonna be doing it on a computer it's really easy to do we need to edit the config dot txt on our SD card I have tested this on retropie and raspbian but it should work on any operating system as long as it has a config dot txt on the SD so here we are at my Windows machine first thing you need to do is download notepad plus plus do not try to edit anything with the built-in notepad in Windows stuff just gets jumbled up notepad plus plus is easy to install and it's safe to download go ahead and insert your SD card into your PC either with a USB card reader or if you're on a laptop use the port on that find the drive that's labeled boot and inside of there we want to edit the config dot txt so we're just gonna right click on it open it with notepad plus plus now I've left this in the description you can download it we want to paste this right at the bottom like I mentioned mine is set to pin 19 if you want to change it you can always change you at the end here when changing the number make sure you refer to a chart of the GPIO layout on the PI 3 you can't just count down and go pin 4 I want to put it there GPIO is our number all I did was copy paste it right at the very end go to file save now we can shut everything down and we're good to go all we have to do now is plug the SD card back into the Raspberry Pi make sure your LED is hooked up to the correct GPIO pins and boot it up so I got everything set up I will leave a link to this monitor everybody asks about it it's very expensive but it is 5 volts 1080p IPS you can get it on Amazon I'm gonna plug my Raspberry Pi in you'll get a couple flashes out of the green LED on the board as soon as it reads the config dot txt our new LED will be working as the activity light so anytime it writes or reads this little LED will flash this will work in conjunction with a safe shutdown switch or a safe reset switch you can even run them from the same ground but you cannot have the same GPIO pin programmed as the shutdown as soon as it starts reading the card here we'll get some more flash in I just set this card up I only put a few roms on it just to show you and like I mentioned this will work with any Raspberry Pi operating system as long as you can edit that config dot txt on the boot partition I tested it on retropie and raspbian let me go do something with snaps in it so every time we load a snap it's got to read the card so you get a quick flash out of it and when you load a game you'll get some flashing I think it's pretty cool to add to a case project or something like that let's say you threw a Raspberry Pi 3 inside of an old PlayStation one case you might want to add this just adds a little extra so I just loaded up a neogeo game these are pretty small so it's not gonna flash that much it doesn't need to read all the time from this ROM I'll just choose a character real quick mess around for a bit and then we'll exit the game I also want to show you what it does when you shut down so I'll press my start and hotkey bring us back into the emulation station menu I'll just demo it out a little more here every time it loads a snap it needs to read the card so you're gonna get some flashing and when you shut down press Start exit shutdown system it's gonna flash while it's shutting down but it will not give you the last 10 flashes the LED on the board will still do the last 10 flashes for the shutdown process I'll boot it up one more time I'm gonna go ahead and fast-forward this because it takes a little bit to boot but that's it I mean if you want to add this super simple to do links in the description of that text file I really appreciate you guys watching if you got any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watchinghey what's going on guys this ETA prime back here again today I want to show you how to add an external activity led to your Raspberry Pi 3 really simple to do you don't need to solder anything so if you've ever looked at a Raspberry Pi 3 while it's running there are two lights here red light and a green light for activity it'll show you when it's reading or writing to the SD card today we're gonna add an external LED this is great for case mods and things like that it just adds a little extra to whatever you're doing some people might not be into it but I think it's a cool idea and it's really simple to do so this method requires using two GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 now it only puts out a maximum of 3.3 volts so pretty much any LED will work without a resistor these here are 5 volt LEDs I got them on Amazon I'll leave links to everything I'm using here I'm just gonna go with the blue it's easier to see you can use any color you want now when we're looking at these LEDs here the longest lead on the LED will always be positive the shorter ones gonna be negative this is important to take note of but it won't hurt anything if you swap them around it just won't light up the next thing you're gonna want to get your hands on are some GPIO jumpers or wire jumpers they're named all kinds of stuff on the internet I'll leave a link these are female-to-female you don't need to solder anything if you're going this method so first things first we want to connect a ground wire so there are a bunch of ground leads here on the GPIO header I'm gonna be using the last one here and I'm going to be connecting my positive to pin 19 now you can swap this out in the config dot txt but for this tutorial I'm using 19 I will be leaving a text file down below in the description you can download it and make it really easy to copy and paste but it is set for pin 19 on the positive now all we need to do is connect our led the longest lead on the LED goes to positive the shortest one goes to negative and that's it for the wiring if you want to make this more permanent you might want to solder the led to the end you'll just clip off the two leads on the end near the LED and directly to the wires now we need to move over to the computer you can do this on the PI but I'm gonna be doing it on a computer it's really easy to do we need to edit the config dot txt on our SD card I have tested this on retropie and raspbian but it should work on any operating system as long as it has a config dot txt on the SD so here we are at my Windows machine first thing you need to do is download notepad plus plus do not try to edit anything with the built-in notepad in Windows stuff just gets jumbled up notepad plus plus is easy to install and it's safe to download go ahead and insert your SD card into your PC either with a USB card reader or if you're on a laptop use the port on that find the drive that's labeled boot and inside of there we want to edit the config dot txt so we're just gonna right click on it open it with notepad plus plus now I've left this in the description you can download it we want to paste this right at the bottom like I mentioned mine is set to pin 19 if you want to change it you can always change you at the end here when changing the number make sure you refer to a chart of the GPIO layout on the PI 3 you can't just count down and go pin 4 I want to put it there GPIO is our number all I did was copy paste it right at the very end go to file save now we can shut everything down and we're good to go all we have to do now is plug the SD card back into the Raspberry Pi make sure your LED is hooked up to the correct GPIO pins and boot it up so I got everything set up I will leave a link to this monitor everybody asks about it it's very expensive but it is 5 volts 1080p IPS you can get it on Amazon I'm gonna plug my Raspberry Pi in you'll get a couple flashes out of the green LED on the board as soon as it reads the config dot txt our new LED will be working as the activity light so anytime it writes or reads this little LED will flash this will work in conjunction with a safe shutdown switch or a safe reset switch you can even run them from the same ground but you cannot have the same GPIO pin programmed as the shutdown as soon as it starts reading the card here we'll get some more flash in I just set this card up I only put a few roms on it just to show you and like I mentioned this will work with any Raspberry Pi operating system as long as you can edit that config dot txt on the boot partition I tested it on retropie and raspbian let me go do something with snaps in it so every time we load a snap it's got to read the card so you get a quick flash out of it and when you load a game you'll get some flashing I think it's pretty cool to add to a case project or something like that let's say you threw a Raspberry Pi 3 inside of an old PlayStation one case you might want to add this just adds a little extra so I just loaded up a neogeo game these are pretty small so it's not gonna flash that much it doesn't need to read all the time from this ROM I'll just choose a character real quick mess around for a bit and then we'll exit the game I also want to show you what it does when you shut down so I'll press my start and hotkey bring us back into the emulation station menu I'll just demo it out a little more here every time it loads a snap it needs to read the card so you're gonna get some flashing and when you shut down press Start exit shutdown system it's gonna flash while it's shutting down but it will not give you the last 10 flashes the LED on the board will still do the last 10 flashes for the shutdown process I'll boot it up one more time I'm gonna go ahead and fast-forward this because it takes a little bit to boot but that's it I mean if you want to add this super simple to do links in the description of that text file I really appreciate you guys watching if you got any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"
