8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display

Do you find it troublesome to control the 7 segment display one at a time? Well, to solve this problem, let’s use the 7 segment serial display instead. In this tutorial, I’ll be using a 8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display that utilises the SPI protocol, and after that, I’ll daisy-chain 2 of the display & run a scroll demo with 2 of it.

Overview

Single 8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display

The above module actually uses the MAX7219 LED driver for controlling each 7 segment display. For more information on how SPI works, you can visit: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/serial-peripheral-interface-spi. The driver actually implement a SPI compatible slave interface that can be controlled from the Arduino.Therefore, for the first part of the tutorial, we will be interfacing this module with an Arduino Uno using only 3 of the digital output pins.

Parts

• Arduino Uno x 1
• 8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display module (SPI) x 1
• Jumper wires

Schematics

Demo

This is just a short demonstration of it.

Code

We would be using the LedControl library to simplify things, which is comes with the Arduino IDE.

//We have to include the library
#include "LedControl.h"

/*
 Now we need a LedControl to work with.
 pin 11 is connected to the DataIn 
 pin 13 is connected to the CLK 
 pin 10 is connected to LOAD 
 We have only a single MAX72XX.
 */
 
LedControl lc = LedControl(11,13,10,2);
void printNumber(int v);
void setup() { 

  // Initialize the 7 Segment
  
    lc.shutdown(0,false);  // Enable display 
    lc.setIntensity(0,5); // Set brightness level (0 is min, 15 is max) 
    lc.clearDisplay(0); // Clear display register 
  }
} 


void loop() { 
  for(int i =0;i<10000;i++){
    printNumber(i);
    delay(100);
  }
  //delay(100);

} 
void printNumber(int v) {
  int ones;
  int tens;
  int hundreds;
  int thousands;

  if(v < 100000){
    ones=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    tens=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    hundreds=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    thousands=v;				

    //Now print the number digit by digit
    lc.setDigit(0,3,(byte)thousands,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,2,(byte)hundreds,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,1,(byte)tens,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,0,(byte)ones,false);
  } 
  else{
    lc.setChar(0,0,'E',false);
  }
}

Connecting two 8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display together

How do we transmit information using 2 of the modules? Well, we will be daisy chaining the 7-segment displays together, and since both uses SPI for communication.

Parts

• Arduino Uno x 1
• 8 Digit 7-Segment Serial Display module (SPI) x 2
• Jumper wires

Schematics

Demo

Code

//We always have to include the library
#include "LedControl.h"

/*
 Now we need a LedControl to work with.
 pin 11 is connected to the DataIn 
 pin 13 is connected to the CLK 
 pin 10 is connected to LOAD 
 We have only a single MAX72XX.
 */
LedControl lc = LedControl(11,13,10,2);

void setup() { 

  // Initialize the 2 MAX7219 devices 
  for(int k=0; k<2; k++){ 
    lc.shutdown(k,false);  // Enable display 
    lc.setIntensity(k,5); // Set brightness level (0 is min, 15 is max) 
    lc.clearDisplay(k); // Clear display register 
  }
} 


void loop() { 
  for(int j =0; j<2;j++){
    int count=0;
    for(int i =0;i<9;i++){
      
      lc.setChar(j,i,'-',false);
      lc.setDigit(j,i-1,i,false);
      delay(300);
      lc.clearDisplay(j);
      
    }
   
  }
} 
void printNumber(int v) {
  int ones;
  int tens;
  int hundreds;
  int thousands;
  int ten_thousand;

  if(v < 100000){
    ones=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    tens=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    hundreds=v%10;
    v=v/10;
    thousands=v;				

    //Now print the number digit by digit
    lc.setDigit(0,3,(byte)thousands,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,2,(byte)hundreds,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,1,(byte)tens,false);
    lc.setDigit(0,0,(byte)ones,false);
  } 
  else{
    lc.setChar(0,0,'E',false);
  }
}