I feel like there's either a simple answer or no answer to this question, but I'd like to make custom number displays of 5x3 yellow LEDs per number, with at least 10 of these 'numbers' being controlled by Arduino. How would I wire up and code the LEDs?
An example of a '9' would be below:
-x-
x-x
-xx
--x
-x
Where the x represents a lit LED. I know that I need to control a lot of these, but I can probably use more than one Arduino (where one might do the multiplexing and the other might handle the distribution to the various number display outputs). Thoughts?
REALLY ?
Is that the best you can do ?
draw a box matrix with 5 rows and 3 columns and make a "9" by filling the boxes and post a photo of it so you can see what that looks like.
Hi, I think it would be better to use 7 segment displays. The numbers will be much easier to read and only 7 rather than 15 leds are needed per digit.
However, if you want to go with the 3x5 matrix idea, I would recommend using max7219 chips. Each chip could run 4 digits in theory, but the wiring and coding would be tricky, so you might need one max7219 for every pair of digits. The chips can be daisy chained so only 3 Arduino outputs are needed to connect to several chips.
Paul