I've built a little amusement park style game that runs off an Arduino and I'm now looking to add a highscore display. For now I'm using a little LED segment display and it works fine but it's tiny. I'd like to setup a large display because I'd like the mount it a meter or two from the player, and if possible viewable by anyway standing around watching. Hobby LCD displays are all really quite small, and once you get up to a size large enough to be readable 2/3 meters away you have to run a whole TV set-up, and that gets crazy. So after much googling I found this:
It looks about the perfect size and if I get can 6 digits for ~$45 it's well within my budget. They also look awesome. But I can't find any real info on using them. The only thing I can find is the image that comes with the auction saying which pin lights up which segment but it doesn't show me how to put it into a circuit etc. Also with 6 digits that's a whole heap of pins so I'm going to need a separate driver chip, bug again I couldn't find any for it (Which is what you get when you want to buy old Russian displays I guess). All in all this looks like its a bit above my skill level.
So .... does anyone know if these are equivalent to something else? Something that has more information and possibly a driver? I'm not too keen on true nixie tubes because they require such high voltage, but any LCD/LED type system that's a bit safer and I can run from my trusty 12v transformer would work.
However I'm not actually set on any specific idea - I'm open to anything that will let me display a large score. As long as it's readable from say 2m I'd love to heard ideas since I'm stuck.
VFD's require a stout voltage as well, they are basicly florescent cold cathode tubes, looking at ~ 60 volts maybe more?
you can make large 7 segment LED displays out of multiple LED's per segment, heck I make a 6*9 7 segment display out of cardboard and gluesticks, though you dont want that in daylight, maybe some super bright LED's and accrylic rods cut up is a more reasonable option
course then there is TVout, just plop your data on a big TV screen
Paul__B:
I think you want to hack the "JY-MCU LED Panel". Google what I quoted there.
That is a much better idea! Seems like a few options, plus there is already a good tutorial for doing a score board with an LED matrix from Sure Electronics:
VFDs are interesting displays. They glow in an interesting way compared to LEDs and have a lot of contrast. I just finished a little VFD project tonight. I got a surplus display from American Science and Surplus for a dollar. It had no datasheet (typical). It's not a general purpose display, it was for some piece of audio equipment. Anyway, determining the grids and anodes was very easy and they are not hard to drive, you just need a high voltage driver chip. I used a Maxim MAX6921 HV driver/shift register. The display required 33 lines and the Maxim chip drives 20 lines so two were used. The anodes and grids are being driven at 30V here and the cathode at 1.5V.
