In some situations the use of 7-segment LED displays is still preferable, however wiring up two or more can become a bit of a headache - and thus the NXP SAA1064 display controller is often used. The SAA1064 offers a neat way of controlling four digits along with their brightness over the I2C bus.
Although serial data buses can be mastered, some enthusiasts prefer using an Arduino library, and a new one has been published by Christian Scheiblich. His library makes controlling the display incredibly simple, and also includes some basic emoticons and letters for use, as shown in the following video:
To download Christian's SAA1064 Arduino library, visit his github page. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
When adding external hardware or devices to your next Arduino project, you'll need a protoshield to mount the external circuitry. In doing so, consider our range of ProtoShields. From the tiny LeoStick to the Mega range, we offer a complete range for you to work with.
Comments
Jump to comment formChristian said:
Hi John,
thanks for placing the Cool SAA1064 lib on your website; found it via google yesterday.
The wheel has come full circle, because I was inspired by your tutorial of the SAA 1064 at tronixstuff.com! :-)
I added you as author to the _splitNum2Dig method, because this method was copyNpaste from your tutorial.
I am going on with the lib and its functionality as soon I got more time left.
Christian