Pay close attention to the instructions for positioning the matrix. It must be oriented correctly to work and is almost impossible to remove it once it has been soldered to the backpack!
When you buy a pack from Adafruit, it comes with the fully tested and assembled backpack as well as a 8x8 matrix. You'll need to solder the matrix onto the backpack but its an easy task.
Remove the parts from packaging and place the LED matrix OVER the silkscreen side.
The matrix must be soldered on the correct orientation or it will not work! Check for the side of the matrix that has printing on it. Then look for the front of the PCB that has a circle instead of a square in the corner and line those up as shown on the left
Do not solder the matrix over the chip on the back of the backpack - it will not work then!
The matrix must be soldered on the correct orientation or it will not work! Check for the side of the matrix that has printing on it. Then look for the front of the PCB that has a circle instead of a square in the corner and line those up as shown on the left
Do not solder the matrix over the chip on the back of the backpack - it will not work then!
Now you're ready to wire it up to a microcontroller. We'll assume you want to use a 4pin header. You can also of course solder wires directly. Place a 4-pin piece of header with the LONG pins down into the breadboard.
