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Programming help needed for LED display
Kevin Mullins:
Does anyone know enough about programming to figure out how to make a three digit numerical LED display correspond to keypad presses? (only numeric btw)
It's really going to need two aspects in the end..... so that was just the beginning.
The second thing I'd want it to do is show a "currently" selected number when no numbers are being pressed.
This will be working in conjunction with some jukebox software. Possibly Wincab/DOSCab.
Basically the original juke used to display the "currently" palying song constantly....
until someone would go to "select" a song, it would then display the numbers that were being pushed for a brief period and then go back to displaying the "currently" playing song.
I've read a little about controlling this sort of thing through a serial port, but honestly I have no clue when it comes to the programming side of things. The hardware stuff I could probably figure out. I even have a few microcontrollers to possibly use for this if needed, the current display has no circuitry on it at all...... just the 7 segment LED digits.
Does this make any sense?
Anyone care? :laugh2:
rockin_rick:
I think that a microcontroller is the easiest/best/cheapest way to do this. You could do it with discrete logic, but it would be more work/more complex. There may be something out there, but I doubt that you can find a prepackaged module that will do what you want.
You may be able to find a prepackaged module that accepts serial commands, but you'll need something to send those commands (either PC or microcontroller). You didn't specify just what this is doing, how the buttons interface, if a PC is being used, etc...
Rick
Kevin Mullins:
--- Quote from: Kevin Mullins on July 25, 2007, 07:36:24 pm ---This will be working in conjunction with some jukebox software. Possibly Wincab/DOSCab.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: rockin_rick on July 25, 2007, 09:21:39 pm ---I think that a microcontroller is the easiest/best/cheapest way to do this.
You may be able to find a prepackaged module that accepts serial commands, but you'll need something to send those commands (either PC or microcontroller). You didn't specify just what this is doing, how the buttons interface, if a PC is being used, etc...
--- End quote ---
I've pulled a few micrcontrollers from other displays and am hoping to find some sort of serial port programming that will work with them through the pc along with/in conjunction with the jukebox software. I'm just not software/programming swavvy enough to start from scratch on my own.
rockin_rick:
I think that you're going to need a premade module then that accepts commands via a RS-232 serial interface (which has a microcontroller running the show).
Googling "serial LED module" will lead you to these. For instance, the first on the list is - http://www.siliconcraft.net/. These will need the PC to send them data in their format, so some PC software will be needed if your juke software doesn't specifically support them...
Rick
RandyT:
This might be silly overkill, but an LED-Wiz can control up to 4 7-segment displays with a few outputs left over for other things.
The displays would need to be CA (Common Anode) and have discrete connection for the grounds on each segment. If that's what you have, you would just need to wire each segment to an output (through an appropriate resistor) and write a simple VB program to manipulate them any way you want. You could also incorporate any fading or animation effects to spice things up a bit.
But the hitch will most likely be getting the information you want from the Jukebox software. Unless it already has some mechanism in place to provide that info to outside code, it won't matter what you try to do with the hardware. It probably won't work. :(
RandyT
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