The Adafruit Feather ecosystem is so rich with hardware diversity, we wanted to share them, one each day. Today is the Adafruit 4-Digit 7-Segment LED Matrix Display FeatherWing – STEMMA QT!
One segment? No way! 7-Segments for life!
This is the Adafruit 4-Digit 7-Segment LED Matrix Display FeatherWing! This 7-segment FeatherWing backpack makes it really easy to add a 4-digit numeric display with decimal points and even ‘second colon dots’ for making a clock.
This version does not come with an LED matrix. Its also available in combo packs of Blue, Green, Red, White, or Yellow which we recommend since you’ll know you have a working LED matrix. Not guaranteed to work with any other 7-segment modules.
7-Segment Matrices like these are ‘multiplexed’ – so to control all the seven-segment LEDs you need 14 pins. That’s a lot of pins, and there are driver chips like the MAX7219 that can control a matrix for you but there’s a lot of wiring to set up and they take up a ton of space. Here at Adafruit we feel your pain! After all, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That’s where these LED Matrix FeatherWings come in!
The LEDs themselves do not connect to the Feather. Instead, a matrix driver chip (HT16K33) does the multiplexing for you. The Feather simply sends i2c commands to the chip to tell it what LEDs to light up and it is handled for you. This takes a lot of the work and pin-requirements off the Feather. Since it uses only I2C for control, it works with any Feather and can share the I2C pins for other sensors or displays.
The product kit comes with:
- A fully tested and assembled Adafruit 4-Digit 7-Segment LED Matrix Display FeatherWing
- Two 16-pin headers
A bit of soldering is required to attach the matrix onto the FeatherWing but its very easy to do and only takes about 5 minutes! Note: Feather board and seven-segment display are not included, but we have lots available in the shop.
USE
The Adafruit 7-Segment LED FeatherWings Guide provides details and use examples.
Guides:
