3-Digit 7-Segment with LedControl.h

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

My design uses a standalone Atmega328 & MAX7219 driving a 3-digit 7-segment display. I'm using the LedControl.h library, as it allows me to set the pins on the MCU I want to use to control the MAX7219, and not solely SPI. I have two questions, as follows:

  1. Is there a more elegant way to display a numerical value (000...999) than what is shown in the example on The LedControl Page or This Example in GitHub?

  2. I want to scroll text characters across the display (understanding the limitations of a 7-segment to display text). LedControl.h only has a few characters included in the library, but allows for binary, so that's not really an issue. Again, there's an example showing how to scroll digits across the display, but nothing for text. That example can be found at the bottom of This Example in GitHub.

I know I could brute force the both of these, but that wouldn't really allow for quick edits. I'm hoping there's a simple way to make LedControl.h perform these tasks like the max7219 library. I've looked through the other libraries for the MAX7219 IC on the site and haven't really found any others to be much better for my requirements.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

2

I have a MAX7219 library which inherits from Print.h - meaning you can print to your display with as easy functions like you know from Serial or a LCD.

like

lc.print(999);

Arduino Noiasca LED Control with print method (MAX7219/MAX7221) (rothschopf.net)

it supports HW SPI (which I prefer) and Soft Bitbang.

You will also find a scroll example in the library.
But honestly, scrolling on a 3 digit display will not look nicely...

3

What is the difference between scrolling text and scrolling numbers? both are symbols

4

I don't want to use SPI; I want to be able to specify my pins via software as in the LedControl library cited. I can't see how I can do that with the example in your link. I know scrolling a 3-digit won't look "nice." I don't particularly care.

5

It's simpler to parse individual digits from a number than it is letters from a word in the LedControl library.

6

See the example
LCDemoNoiascaHelloWorld

from Arduino Noiasca LED Control with print method (MAX7219/MAX7221)

which uses the constuctor for Software Bitbang (= on any pin)

7

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.