5 Oct
2006
5 Oct
'06
12:16 a.m.
I got to wondering how to make a large numeric display (a few inches high) for
a potential project. I've only seen 7-segment displays up to about an inch in
height, plus I quite fancy something with more rounded numerals anyway (all of
this came about from thinking about Nixies :)
Building something from individual LEDs looks to be cost-prohibitive, not to
mention power-hungry; I think I figured on over about 125 LEDs per digit.
Velleman sell/sold kits for large 7 segment displays. Each 'segment' was
a number of LEDs in seires with the appropraite drier electronics. I
forget how expensive the kits were, but IIRC, it was OK if you wanted,
say, 4 digits for a clock, but too expensive to think of buying many more.
LEDs are not that expemive (at least not red ones) if you buy them in
quantity.
-tony