Hi Everyone,
A two part question here. First, does anyone know of a 5-digit lcd display? I found what looks like it'd be a link to one here (towards the bottom):
but when you click it you get nothing.
Second, do those 5-digit displays usually come with driver boards? If not, would it be possible to drive 2 of them from an Arduino? I'm thinking of building a monitoring gizmo that displays two 5-digit numbers and potentially lights up around 10 LEDs. Is that too much for one arduino to handle?
Have a look in the following places, and you will find the answers:
the playground tutorial and hardware sections
the index of Arduino knowledge
What you a basically want to do for LED's ( the one on that page was an LED display, not an LCD, so I assume you want leds) is use something called "multiplexing. For five seven-segment displays, you would connect all the "A" segments together, and all the "B' segments..etc. Then you connect the common pin on each digit to one Arduino pin. The software then sends the segment info, and turns on the appropriate digit, and then does that for the next digit. It does it very fast, so you don't see them off.
there are Also one-chip solutions that will do the multiplexing for you. Try searching Arduino and MAX7219 or MAX7221 or multiplexing or LEDS, and you should find a whole lot of info
If you can't find a 5-digit display, just put five single-digit displays side by side.
D
