Sometimes, a good hack is about using less rather than more. That’s the case with this neat tutorial from [Rahul.S] on driving a 7-segment LED display with an FT232. By using this cheap USB to serial controller, [Rahul.S] was able to drive the display directly without using a microcontroller, which keeps the component cost down.

He’s bit banging an octal buffer connected to the display. You may be surprised to find that the FT232 chips do have enough outputs to make this work. Rather than send serial data number to the display and have a controller convert this into a set of signals that make the number, this conversion is done by the PC, which then sends a signal that directly illuminates the appropriate parts of the LED. By using all of the available output lines of the FT232 (including ones like the RTS/CTS line that are usually used for signalling), [Rahul.S] was able to drive all seven of the elements and the decimal point.

Of course, cynics may argue that it would be simpler to use a cheap serial LCD display. That is true, but there is always something to be said for knowing how to do something yourself rather than letting others do it for you… Continue reading “Driving A 7 Segment LED Display From An FT232” →