I really like these boards, having the Max7219 chip on board makes using many digits really easy, even trivial.
I bought these to display various frequencies on a homemade Bendix King type com/nav radio panel for my flight simulator, normally I avoid 7-Segs but this project just had to use them. I have used 7-Segs the 'old way' (pre Max7219, shift registers and wires everywhere) so thought the project was going to be a bit frustrating as it has 4 x 8 digits, 4 x 3 digits . It turns out this is really easy to do.
They only need three IO's and can be chained.
The boards came with headers already soldered (I would have preferred them not to be). Two sets of 4 digit 7-Segs sit in IC sockets to make up the 8 digits per board. The Led modules stand off the board quite a lot, the form factor is great for prototyping but could be a it difficult to panel mount (not impossible).
I used the LedControl Lib (Arduino) which allows easy control of features (like brightness) and makes it easy to send a 'string' of numbers (long int in my case) to the attached displays while managing offsets etc. It also allows you to have fine grained control of every segment of every digit. It further allows multiple instances of the library so you can drive many Max7219 chips in various configurations.
recommended for any project that really needs that 80's look or where an LCD just does not cut the mustard.
| Brand | Hobby Components |
|---|---|
| Package Dimensions | 8.8 x 3 x 0.6 cm; 10 g |
| Item model number | HCMODU0082 |
| Manufacturer | Hobby Components |
| Hardware Platform | Arduino |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 10 g |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
