7 segement LEDs and 595 shift registers

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

Hi all,

I'm working on a personal project of mine which is to create an electronic version of the classic board game Risk.

One of my tasks is to drive 42 pairs of 7 segment LEDs (ie, 84 x 7 seg LEDs). I need to do it with the minimum amount of pins. My idea is to simply daisy chain 84 x 595 shift registers.

Does anyone know if that is possible to chain 84 SRs? Or does anyone have any other suggestions on how to drive all of the LED displays?

If anyone knows the game Risk - I'll be placing a pair of displays in each territory to display the number of armies in that territory.

Thanks.

2

Thanks Richard. I've ordered 2 free sample chips for testing.

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Does anyone know if that is possible to chain 84 SRs?

Yes it is possible but it is not easy. It requires proper layout, decoupling and attention to signal drive or fan out as it is called.
Just like a lot of other things you can't always scale up electronics ideas.