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High-voltage seven segment LED display driver with SPI interface

Posted on August 19, 2013 by R-B 44 comments

Seven segment LED displays are known to be resource and power hungry. But because they are visually so charming and readable from a far viewing distance and at a much wider viewing angle as compared to any other electronic displays, they are still hugely popular. The required number of I/O pins to drive the LED segments can be reduced significantly by using an additional dedicated hardware. For example, the MAXIM’s MAX7219 device allows you to interface 8 pieces of seven segment LED modules using only 3 I/O pins of Arduino or any other microcontroller. You can find details on the use of MAX7219 to drive seven segment LED displays in my previous projects 4-digit serial seven segment LED display (SPI7SEGDISP4.40-1R), 8-digit serial seven segment LED display (SPI7SEGDISP8.56-1R), and double-row 4-digit seven segment LED display (SPI7SEGDISP8.56-2R). Since MAX7219 operates at 5V, its output can drive LED segments with forward voltage less than 5V. I have successfully used MAX7219 IC with 1.5″ seven segment LED modules that carry two regular LEDs in series per segment. Inside larger seven segment LED modules, the display segments are made of multiple LEDs connected in series and parallel to provide sufficient light to illuminate the segment, and as such they require a higher forward voltage and more current to operate. Recently, I have designed this display driver board that can be used as a bridge in between larger seven segment LED displays (with segment forward voltage up to 24V) and a 5V microcontroller. On its input side is MAX7219 which receives the display data from the host microcontroller through a 3-wire SPI bus.

Serial driver for large seven segment LED displays

New version of MAX7219 based 4-digit serial seven segment LED display

Posted on February 20, 2013 by R-B Leave a comment

This (SPI7SEGDISP4.40-1R) is a revised version of the previous SPI seven segment LED display (4 digit) board that displayed numerals and decimal points. The new version has a better quality seven segment LED display (LTC-4727JS) with three extra LED segments, as shown below. The additional colon segments are useful in projects where you need to display time (HH:MM or MM:SS).

Newer version of 4-digit SPI seven segment LED display

Dual 4-digit seven segment LED display with SPI interface

Posted on June 26, 2012 by R-B 2 comments

This project is an extension of my previous MAX7219 based SPI seven segment LED display module. The new display features eight 7-segment displays arranged in two rows of four digits. The on-board MAX7219 driver enables you to easily add eight 7-segment LED displays to your project using only 3 I/O pins of microcontroller. The major advantage of using this board is the time-division multiplexing operations required for continuous refreshing of the display digits are performed by the MAX7219 chip, thereby keeping the microcontroller free for doing other pressing tasks. It is suitable for displaying two variable values simultaneously in a project, such as displaying temperature and humidity, or current and voltage, etc.

8-digit seven segment LED display with serial interface

Serial four digit 7-segment LED display module

Posted on May 7, 2012 by R-B 29 comments

Seven segment LED displays are a very popular mean of displaying numerical information and finds application in front panel display boards of microwave ovens, washers and dryers, digital clocks, frequency counters, and many other gadgets. Compared to the LCD displays, the seven segment LED displays are brighter and provide a far viewing distance and a wide viewing angle. However, the downside is they are resource-hungry. It requires at least 12 I/O pins of a microcontroller to drive a standard 4-digit seven segment LED module. Consequently, their use with low pin-count microcontrollers (such as PIC12F series) is not practically feasible. Here’s a solution for that. The following 4-digit seven segment LED module features a serial interface that requires only 3 I/O pins of a microcontroller and provides full control of all digits and decimal points .

Four digit serial 7-segment LED display