7-Segment LED Display is a very useful component, but also a very confusing and difficult piece to use for beginners. It won’t be difficult once you get it working for the first time.
This is what you will get at the end of the tutorial (part one):
It basically consists of 7 LEDs, (8 if include decimal point). Just like controlling a single LED, we need to connect each ‘segment LED’ to a Arduino digital pin. Here is the circuit diagram of the LED display:
You might notice, there are 2 different type of them, don’t be scared by them, because in the market, the “Common Cathode” type is the most popular so you won’t need to care about the other type.
Basically, all you need to do is to connect each LED with a pin, and connect the shared Gnd connector to the ground pin. Next you will need to program it, so required LEDs are switched on to display different number.
Here is my circuit diagram:
Coding:
I have created a class for using the 7 seg LED display, it’s not a complete working class, but gives a few very useful basic functions. Feel free to expand it and add new useful functions, or create your own class.
Read more: Learn how to use 7-Segment LED Display using Arduino