Does anyone know of a rather large (like roughly 3x8", doesn't have to be exact) character display that can be easily driven by Arduino like all the other ones out there? I'm thinking this would be a 16x1 display, just much larger than the small hobby ones on places like Adafruit. The screen just has to display a single line and the text has to be large enough to be seen from a reasonable distance, say, 30ft or so.
For some reason I'm having a hard time finding large ones. The largest I found was this one on eBay which has a 99mmx13mm viewing area, still much too small.
I think you'll need to use a graphical display and draw big characters on it, or use 16-segment LED display modules. Or get one of those scrolling LED displays like they have in stores.
It has to be LCD?
MAX7219 LED dot matrix modules (32mm x 32mm) can be joined in length and width to whatever size display you need. Esy to drive a bunch of them with three Arduino pins. A block of four is ~US6.00 on ebay.
Leo..
Those scrolling displays would be cool, but where do I find them? Preferably the display should be one piece, not sticking multiple matrices together.
Although it could be a graphical display I've never seen them in slim formats for only one line. Most are closer to square as far as I know. I also don't need great resolution.
Thanks for all the replies, guys, this is interesting. The DIY neopixel strips look pretty cool. I think I might've found what I needed though. Look at "SC4004B" from this website. Although I have no clue what they would cost.