Adafruit is celebrating Lunar New Year🐍 Wednesday 1/29/2025. In combination with MLK Day, shipping could be delayed. Please allow extra time for your order to ship!
NEW PRODUCTS – 1.2″ 8×8 Matrix Square Pixels w/ and w/out Backpacks in Blue / Amber / Yellow / Pure Green / White
Make a scrolling sign, or a small video display with these 8×8 square gridded LED matrices. Only 1.2″ on a side, these are quite visible but not so large that they wont plug into a breadboard! 64 LEDs are contained inside the plastic body, in an 8×8 matrix. There are 16 pins on the side, 8 on each, with 0.1″ spacing so you can easily plug it into a breadboard with one row on each side for wiring it up.
Since the display is in a grid, you’ll need to 1:8 multiplex control it. We suggest either using a 74HC595 and TPIC6B595 (using the 74HC’ to control the 8 anodes at once and then using the TPIC’ to drive one cathode at a time) or just using a single MAX7219 which will do the multiplexing work for you.
We also have them with backpacks (as seen above)! Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That’s where these lovely LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in three flavors – a mini 0.7″ 8×8, a small 1.2″ 8×8 and a 4-digit 0.56″ 7-segment. They work perfectly with the matrices we stock in the Adafruit shop and make adding a bright little display trivial.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 2025 Wraps, Focus on Using Python, Open Source and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
