Alpha Centauri
Big Alphanumeric Display Board – A pile of ultra-bright palm-sized 16-segment alphanumeric displays with network-based control
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Project description
This one has been sitting in a box for years. At the time I wasn't entirely sure how to power these huge and bright displays, but I did get the ideas around control right.
Using high power output shift registers, the 128 segments can be individually controlled from a single set of data, clock and enable pins.
Prototyping with the Freetronics Ethernet, an Arduino reference design with WizNet ethernet control is custom built into pluggable, multi-purpose modules supporting open lighting control protocols.
COMPONENTS
16×TPIC6B595
Power Logic 8-Bit Shift Register
8×BL-S230B-12
LED NUMERIC DISPLAY Ultra White
Fixing Shift Register Instability
Such a simple fix! It occured to me that I had left the Shift Register Clear pin floating. Tying it high (active low) immediately stabilised the output and reduced flicker to imperceivable levels!
