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[on:]

Hiya, i have recently dug out some old electronics bits i had put to one side. one of them is a 16 pin 7 Seg display, with its own micro controller (TIL-306). I am just trying to wire this up to an Arduino so that i can either count button presses or send something from the Arduino to it. If any one could help that would be great  . Thanks in advance.

Oh the Datasheet for the TIL-306 is attached

[Reply #1 on:]

Here is a quick way to test/experiment with TIL307/TIL307

NOTE: LATCH should occur before a CLEAR and BOTH LATCH and CLEAR should be held HIGH until you want to either LATCH or CLEAR the counter, at which point the respective pin is set LOW.

[Reply #2 on:]

Thats great thanks PWillard, now i'm having a little trouble actually getting it working though so i will explain what i have done to try and make it count.

I have an Arduino Mega 1280 By the way.

I have connected the following
Latch to Pin 22
Clear to Pin 23
Pulse to Pin 24

The code i am using is below

Code:

const int Latch = 22;
const int Clear = 23;
const int Pulse = 24;

void setup() {               

  pinMode(Latch, OUTPUT);     
  pinMode(Clear, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Pulse, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(Latch, HIGH);   // set the LED on
  delay(500);
  digitalWrite(Clear, LOW);   // set the LED on
  delay(500);
  digitalWrite(Clear, HIGH);   // set the LED on
  delay(500);

 
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(Pulse, LOW);   // set the LED on
  delay(500);
  digitalWrite(Pulse, HIGH);   // set the LED on
  delay(2500);
}

I am simply trying to get it to count up to 5. But it seems to just show random numbers sometimes . Is there something i am doing wrong?

[Reply #3 on:]

Um... this is sort of tricky... I'll see if I can write up a some sample code for you.  I have a number of these parts I can play with from an old Frequency Counter project.

OK, this was quick:

You were on the right track...  I misled you about LATCH... sorry.

Code:

// NOTE currently setup to clear counter at 7

const int Latch = 12;  // Different PINS (BOARDUINO)
const int Clear = 3;
const int Pulse = 2;
int counter;

//----------------------------------------------------
void setup() {               
  // PIN PRESETS
  pinMode(Latch, OUTPUT);     
  pinMode(Clear, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Pulse, OUTPUT);
  // Initialize latch and clear settings to
  // allow COUNT mode

  //       +--------------
  // ______|                LATCH

  digitalWrite(Latch, HIGH); // LOCK THE DISPLAY
  delay(100);

  //       +--------------
  // ______|                PULSE

  digitalWrite(Clear, HIGH); // Leave CLEAR HIGH to allow counting
  delay(100);
  counter = 0;

 // use serial monitor for debugging
 Serial.begin(9600);
}

//----------------------------------------------------
void loop() {
  counter = counter++;
  Serial.println(counter,DEC);
  // -----+
  //      |_______________  LATCH
 
  digitalWrite(Latch, LOW);  // LATCH LOW to COUNT

  //       +------+
  // ______|      |______  PULSE
  digitalWrite(Pulse, LOW);   
  delay(100);
  digitalWrite(Pulse, HIGH);  // PULSE TOGGLE to count up
  delay(100);
  digitalWrite(Pulse, LOW);   
  delay(1000); // So we can see stuff happen

  //---------------------------------------------------
  // --SOME DEBUG--
  // COUNT TO 7 to show how CLEAR works
  if (counter == 7) {
    Serial.println("clear");
 // Set COUNT to Zero on Display
 // ------+       +-------
 //       |_______|        CLEAR

    digitalWrite(Clear, LOW);
    delay(100);
    digitalWrite(Clear, HIGH);
    delay(1000);  // So we can see stuff happen
    counter = 0;
  }
}

 

[Reply #4 on:]

Thank you, I am not able to try this out right away but will let you know the results asap

[Reply #5 on:]

I got this working fine, then added a second TIL-306 and it seems to count to 16 before it resets? i will look into this and post the results if i figure it out. Thanks for the help .