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Friday, April 7, 2023

on video How to make a seven-segment meter with IC 4511 yourself


 Use a 7-segment display with an Arduino / Genuino board

The 7-segment displays are LED displays inherited from a now bygone era when everyone could buy their own electronic kit to assemble themselves at the corner electronics store or by sending their cut-out form in the electronics magazines of the era. Today, there are fewer and fewer 7-segment displays in commercial devices. It's a shame, because it's a simple and effective technology.


No action movie would be complete without a villainous villain with a bomb displaying the time remaining before the explosion on a 7-segment display and beeping every second, so the hero can stop the counter at 00:00:01.


As you will have understood, in this article, we will learn how to use 7-segment displays with an Arduino / Genuino board.


7-segment displays

7-segment displays are LED displays made up of 7 segments (one LED per segment), which display numbers and sometimes even letters depending on the application.


A few years ago, 7-segment displays were everywhere: clock radios, watches, calculators, microwaves, ovens, timers, industrial systems, measuring tools, etc. Today, 7-segment displays have for the most part been replaced by LCD displays or higher-end graphic screens. 7-segment displays are only found in very specific use cases: voltmeter for model making, DIY electronic card or for a niche market, low-cost measurement tools, etc.


The 7-segment displays have been forgotten, because they are too sober, times change, tastes too. But as it is simply a series of LEDs in the same box, in the end, it is a very simple technology to implement. And as they say, often the simplest solution is the best.

7-segment displays consist of 7 segments, hence their name. These segments are named A, B, C, D, E, and F by convention, and they appear in the order shown above.


Each segment corresponds to an LED that can be turned on or off to form numbers, letters and even rudimentary special characters. In general, displays have 7 segments and a "decimal point" which can be used to display decimal numbers or sub-units (tenths of a second for example).


PS As we will see in a future article, there are also specialized versions with double dots for the hours and apostrophes for the minutes (for American notation).


There are a multitude of 7-segment display colors: red, green, yellow, orange, blue, white, etc. There are a multitude of sizes, from the small display of a few millimeters side to several tens of centimeters. You choose 


In the end, regardless of the color and size of the display, the operating principle is the same.

Displaying figures with a 7-segment display comes down to lighting the LEDs of the appropriate segments. That's all.


Any assembly / code capable of lighting 7 or 8 LEDs simultaneously is capable of using a 7 segment display. There is no simpler.


I gave you an illustration of the different numbers possible with a 7-segment display. If you have trouble reading the numbers, step back a little from your screen. An illustration is worth more than words in this case 


PS I added in the illustration the letters from A to F, because the display of hexadecimal digits is very classic with 7-segment displays. Life is not just about numbers from 0 to 9 in computer science 


 Use a 7-segment display with an Arduino / Genuino board

The 7-segment displays are LED displays inherited from a now bygone era when everyone could buy their own electronic kit to assemble themselves at the corner electronics store or by sending their cut-out form in the electronics magazines of the era. Today, there are fewer and fewer 7-segment displays in commercial devices. It's a shame, because it's a simple and effective technology.


No action movie would be complete without a villainous villain with a bomb displaying the time remaining before the explosion on a 7-segment display and beeping every second, so the hero can stop the counter at 00:00:01.


As you will have understood, in this article, we will learn how to use 7-segment displays with an Arduino / Genuino board.


7-segment displays

7-segment displays are LED displays made up of 7 segments (one LED per segment), which display numbers and sometimes even letters depending on the application.


A few years ago, 7-segment displays were everywhere: clock radios, watches, calculators, microwaves, ovens, timers, industrial systems, measuring tools, etc. Today, 7-segment displays have for the most part been replaced by LCD displays or higher-end graphic screens. 7-segment displays are only found in very specific use cases: voltmeter for model making, DIY electronic card or for a niche market, low-cost measurement tools, etc.


The 7-segment displays have been forgotten, because they are too sober, times change, tastes too. But as it is simply a series of LEDs in the same box, in the end, it is a very simple technology to implement. And as they say, often the simplest solution is the best.

7-segment displays consist of 7 segments, hence their name. These segments are named A, B, C, D, E, and F by convention, and they appear in the order shown above.


Each segment corresponds to an LED that can be turned on or off to form numbers, letters and even rudimentary special characters. In general, displays have 7 segments and a "decimal point" which can be used to display decimal numbers or sub-units (tenths of a second for example).


PS As we will see in a future article, there are also specialized versions with double dots for the hours and apostrophes for the minutes (for American notation).


There are a multitude of 7-segment display colors: red, green, yellow, orange, blue, white, etc. There are a multitude of sizes, from the small display of a few millimeters side to several tens of centimeters. You choose 


In the end, regardless of the color and size of the display, the operating principle is the same.

Displaying figures with a 7-segment display comes down to lighting the LEDs of the appropriate segments. That's all.


Any assembly / code capable of lighting 7 or 8 LEDs simultaneously is capable of using a 7 segment display. There is no simpler.


I gave you an illustration of the different numbers possible with a 7-segment display. If you have trouble reading the numbers, step back a little from your screen. An illustration is worth more than words in this case 


PS I added in the illustration the letters from A to F, because the display of hexadecimal digits is very classic with 7-segment displays. Life is not just about numbers from 0 to 9 in computer science 

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