What's better than a single LED? Lots of LEDs! A fun way to make a small display is to use an 8x8 matrix or a 4-digit 7-segment display. 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 adorable LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in two flavors - a mini 8x8 and a 4-digit 0.56" 7-segment.
These are the Eagle CAD files for the Adafruit LED Backpack breakouts:
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/878
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/879
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/880
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/881
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/872
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/871
- http://www.adafruit.com/products/870
These displays use I2C to communicate, 2 pins are required to interface. There are multiple selectable I2C addresses. For backpacks with 2 Address Select pins: 0x70, 0x71, 0x72 or 0x73. For backpacks with 3 Address Select pins: 0x70 thru 0x77
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Designed by Limor Fried/Ladyada for Adafruit Industries. Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike, all text above must be included in any redistribution. See license.txt for additional information.