Control LED Blinking With a Potentiometer and OLED Display

2026-08-24 | By Ron Cutts

License: GNU Lesser General Public License Displays Microcontrollers PWM Arduino ESP32

In this tutorial, we will learn how to control the LED blinking with a potentiometer and display the pulse frequency value on the OLED display.

Watch the demonstration video.

Learn more about Visuino: What is Visuino

What You Will Need

What You Will Need photo 2

What You Will Need photo 3

What You Will Need photo 4

What You Will Need photo 5

What You Will Need photo 6

The Circuit

Connect potentiometer pin [DTB] to arduino analog pin [A0]
Connect potentiometer pin [VCC] to arduino pin [5V]
Connect potentiometer pin [GND] to arduino pin [GND]
Connect LED positive pin to Arduino digital pin [7]
Connect LED positive pin to Arduino pin [GND]
Connect OLED display pin [VCC] to arduino pin [5V]
Connect OLED display pin [GND] to arduino pin [GND]
Connect OLED display pin [SDA] to arduino pin [SDA]
Connect OLED display pin [SCL] to arduino pin [SCL]

The Circuit

Start Visuino, and Select the Arduino UNO Board Type

To start programming the Arduino, you will need to have the Arduino IDE installed from here: https://www.arduino.cc/.

Please be aware that there are some critical bugs in Arduino IDE 1.6.6. Make sure that you install 1.6.7 or higher; otherwise, this will not work! If you have not done so, follow the steps to set up the Arduino IDE to program Arduino UNO! The Visuino: https://www.visuino.eu also needs to be installed. Start Visuino as shown in the first picture. Click on the "Tools" button on the Arduino component (Picture 1) in Visuino. When the dialog appears, select "Arduino UNO" as shown in Picture 2

Start Visuino, and Select the Arduino UNO Board Type

Start Visuino, and Select the Arduino UNO Board Type photo 2

In Visuino ADD & Connect Components

Add "Pulse Generator" component
In the properties window, select "Frequency" and click on the pin icon and select "Float SinkPin"
Add "Multiply Analog By Value" component and in the properties window, set "Value" to 10
Add "OLED display I2C"
- Double-click on the DisplayOLED1 component
-In the element window, expand "Text" and drag "Text Field" to the left side
-Select "Text Field1" on the left side, and in the properties window, set size to: 2

Close the elements window
Connect Arduino AnalogIn [0] to "MultiplyByValue1" pin[In]
Connect "MultiplyByValue1" pin [Out] to DisplayOLED1>Text Field1>pin In
Connect "MultiplyByValue1" pin [Out] to "PulseGenerator1" pin[Frequency]

Connect DisplayOLED1 pin I2C Out to Arduino I2C In
Connect "PulseGenerator1" pin[Out] to Arduino digital pin[7]

In Visuino ADD & Connect Components

In Visuino ADD & Connect Components photo 2

In Visuino ADD & Connect Components photo 3

In Visuino ADD & Connect Components photo 4

Generate, Compile, and Upload the Arduino Code

In Visuino, Press F9 or click on the button shown in Picture 1 to generate the Arduino code, and open the Arduino IDE

In the Arduino IDE, click on the Upload button to compile and upload the code (Picture 2)

Generate, Compile, and Upload the Arduino Code

Generate, Compile, and Upload the Arduino Code photo 2

Play

If you power the Arduino UNO module and change the potentiometer position, the LED will change its blinking frequency, and the potentiometer value (frequency) will be displayed on the OLED display.

Congratulations! You have completed your project with Visuino. Also attached is the Visuino project that I created for this. You can download it here and open it in Visuino: https://www.visuino.eu

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