Put some 90s music on! We’re making an clock from 4x5x7 integrated LED displays. Here’s the github repo, in case you wanna play along at home. https://github.com/Veticus/hcms_296x_clock]

hcms_296x_clock

A desk/nightstand clock using Avago HCMS-296x series 4-digit 5*7 LED Displays.

Usage with a Particle Photon on a breadboard

Stuff needed for basic breadboard tinkering

  • Broadcom/Avago HCMS-296x series display
  • Breadboard
  • Particle Photon
  • A handfull of dupont-type wires
  • A microUSB cable for the Photon

The hardware steps

(I’m assuming you know how to use a breadboard)
  1. Plug the Photon and the display into the breadboard
  2. Connect pin 4 of the display to the D0 pin on the Photon
  3. Connect pin 5 to D1
  4. Connect pin 6 to D2
  5. Connect pin 7 to D3
  6. Connect pin 12 to D4
  7. Connect pins 8 and 9 to GND
  8. Connect pins 3, 10 and 11 to VCC/Vin
  9. Take a sip of water/tea/coffee/Club Mate
  10. Plug the Photon into a USB port

The software steps

  1. Launch the [Particle Web IDE] or use the [Particle Desktop IDE (Dev)]
  2. Give your App a title
  3. Download or clone this repository
  4. Copy the files into your Particle project
  5. Chose the right device to upload to
  6. Upload and flash
  7. Enjoy! And happy tinkering!

Note: Lines 33 and 34 disable the built-in LED. This helps with nightstand use, but may throw you off. Just comment them out, or use RGB.brightness() to dim the LED

Now what?

Check out the LedDisplay.hfile, to see what else you can do with these magnificent little displays. I suggest connecting a bunch of them. Just connect everything in parallel, except for the dataPin (Pin 4). From right to left connect the displays from Pin 4 to Pin 1. (Pin 1 being “dataOut” while Pin 4 is “dataIn”). Check the datasheet linked below.

You might also have some fun with editing the font file or making animations.

Datasheet for the HCMS-29xxseries

Some great examples can be found in PaulStoffregen’s Arduino Library for the displays: GitHub - PaulStoffregen/LedDisplay

Acknowledgments

  • Tom Idoe, who wrote the control library in 2009
  • Pascal Stang, who wrote the 5x7 font in 2001
  • Mark ‘Robotto’ Moore, who tested this for me <3
  • Paul Stoffregen, for the Ardunio library and examples

License

See the LICENSE file. forthebadge