A Simple, Self-contained 7-segment Display

self-contained-7-seg

It’s no secret that seven-segment displays are an easy and useful way to relay data, so [Kelvyn Panici] decided to put together a minimalst, self-contained display for use around the house.

The display itself is a 16-digit model he picked up from DealExtreme for under $10. He wanted to find a microcontroller small enough to fit behind the display’s footprint, so he chose an ATtiny85 to control it. After mounting the mcu on a small piece of perfboard, he burned the Arduino bootloader and uploaded a small sketch to drive the display.

Things worked out quite well as you can see by the video below where he shows off a pre-perfboard prototype. [Kelvyn] currently does not have any immediate projects in the works that will utilize the display, though there are a plethora of possibilities. We think it would work great anywhere if it were fitted with a battery and some sort of wireless radio in order to make it completely self-contained.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NZ0nGKdFo&feature=player_embedded&w=470]

13 thoughts on “A Simple, Self-contained 7-segment Display

      1. Prepare to discover the true meaning of the word ‘patience’.

        Their ‘in stock’ status is a lie, and some things take forever to arrive.

        To their credit if they make a mistake they will sort it out, and if you complain too much they’ll refund you instantly.

  1. Be warned, I’ve been waiting on this since December. Dealextreme probably didn’t have a lot of them, so they definitely seem to be waiting on the supplier… but since it’s only 8 bucks I didn’t cancel it, let’s see how long it takes.

    I did by other stuff from the same supplier (JY-MCU) and got that already… a very cheap bluetooth serial module.

  2. I also ordered 1 in december 2011 and mine arrived 2 weeks ago.
    I cant seem to get the library to compile but im looking for help and advice elsewhere :P Its a awesome display and using the Buspirate it works, anyway I can say that DX takes a long time, and now chinese new years over maybe they are getting quicker again. Goodluckbuy also has awesome stuff, no JY-MCU :( but on ebay there’s alott. Cheap to :)

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