Software to control 7-segment displays.

Software:

Based on code found in the comments section of the SparkFun Hookup Guide. Thanks to Member #910971 and Member #642108.

This code is further improved to easily support multiple displays, as well as text/numbers, with scrolling.

Hardware:

Tested with the following hardware:

• 7-Segment Display - 6.5" (Red)
• SparkFun Large Digit Driver
• RaspberryPi 4
• SN74AHCT125N Quadruple Bus Buffer Gates With 3-State Outputs
• Adafruit Perma-Proto HAT

It is likely to work with other variants, home made displays and/or drivers based on TPIC6C596, as well as other voltage converters for signal, for example the SparkFun Logic Level Converter.

12v power to the displays are provided externally.

Build instructions:

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/large-digit-driver-hookup-guide/all

In our case, we swapped the Arduino with a RaspberryPi 4. As the Pi operates with 3.3v signals on the GPIO compared to the 5v of the Arduino, the signal lines (clk, latch, data) needs to be adjusted via a logic level converter.

Defaults:

Segments class parameters, based on the Raspberry BCM pinout:

• bcm_gpio_clock=11 (CLK)
• bcm_gpio_latch=13 (Signals when to switch to the next display)
• bcm_gpio_data=14 (TXD - used to turn each segment on/off)
• num_displays=7 (The number of displays you've chained)
• debug=False (Turns on debug output to console)
• offline=False (Deactivates the actual GPIO-parts, used mainly for dev/tests)