November 27, 2012

Charlieplexing 7-segment LED displays with Arduino

 Although it seems the default display strategy for most Arduino projects is to use an LCD display, there still remains a need for numeric LED displays - they're cheap, robust and can be read in light levels that can often wash out an LCD. However using them without external shift registers can burn up your digital I/O pins quickly. Therefore this tutorial by Instructables user 'edl1' will be of interest. They have explained the process of "Charlieplexing" - or using multiplexing to reduce the number of required output pins to drive four seven-segment LED displays. 


The theory and practice is explained and demonstrated - and this method also translates well for making LED matrices. So click here to get started, and for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

If this type of project interests you and you're new to the Arduino world, check out our new Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:


The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects! 

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