I'm glad you asked! This is a YouTube subscriber counter based on a 4-digit 7-segment display. The python script periodically calls the Youtube API v3 to get the number of public subscribers a channel with a given user handle has, and outputs the value onto the display.
The circuit consists of connection between the display and Pi for any digit pins (D1-D4) and a resistor for the segment pins (A-G + Decimal)
Below is an image from SparkFun of the Raspberry Pi pins and an image from software particles of the pins of the 7 segment display
The following connections were used (NOTE: I used a 5641AS module, which turns on a digit by setting its pin low and segments high. The alternative is a 5641BS module, which has it reversed. This can be changed in code by taking the complement of the dictionary containing the binary for each symbol)
| Raspberry Pi Pins | Display Pin | Resistor needed? |
|---|---|---|
| GPIO17 | D1 | No |
| GPIO27 | D2 | No |
| GPIO22 | D3 | No |
| GPIO5 | D4 | No |
| GPIO6 | A | Yes |
| GPIO13 | B | Yes |
| GPIO26 | C | Yes |
| GPIO23 | D | Yes |
| GPIO24 | E | Yes |
| GPIO25 | F | Yes |
| GPIO12 | G | Yes |
| GPIO16 | Decimal | Yes |
The finished circuit will look like the following (but probably a lot nicer lol):
To use this program, you need the dependencies listed on requirements.txt, the python script MakeSureToLikeAndSubSeg.py,
and the configuration file cfg.txt
While in a virtual environment (made with python3 -m venv <venv_name> and entered with source <venv_name>/bin/activate), the dependencies can be installed with pip install -r requirements.txt
The cfg.txt file simply has your key for the YouTube Data API in the first line, and the user handle (seen below a channel's username
when you open their page) in the second line. A key for the API can be generated by following the instructions here
Once the environment is set up and the configuration file is set, the program can be run using the following
python3 MakeSureToLikeAndSubSeg.py