Hello everyone, I am working on a project where I would like to install one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/10pcs-0-8inch-7...317?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item483fd1c0dd

and have it display completely random things (dont even have to be numbers) How could I possible go about doing this?

Thanks

 

Just one? Or all 10?

 

It is a standard LED in a specialized package. Try using 1K resistors on the anodes and power it up with a 9V battery. There are chips meant to drive them (using resistors to prevent the chip and LED from burning out). Basically these chips convert BCD (binary coded decimal) to numbers for these displays.

How much do you know about LEDs?

 

Just to throw an idea out there for the random patterns, an LFSR (linear feedback shift register) makes for a pretty good random pattern generator. You could use something like a 74HC595 shift register and some XOR gates for that part of the circuit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_feedback_shift_register

 

It is a standard LED in a specialized package. Try using 1K resistors on the anodes and power it up with a 9V battery. There are chips meant to drive them (using resistors to prevent the chip and LED from burning out). Basically these chips convert BCD (binary coded decimal) to numbers for these displays.

How much do you know about LEDs?

The more I think about it, it doesnt even have to change randomly. Is there a way to just be able to flip a switch, the display powers up and have it wired to show something that isnt a letter or number? something that could be percieved as "alien" is what I am getting at.

If you could show me how to do this or point me in the right direction it would be awesome

Thanks for your help

 

Here is a circuit I designed a few years ago. You could change the individual LED's with a common anode display.

 

It so happens the AAC book has a similar chapter...

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_6/chpt_7/9.html

 

The more I think about it, it doesnt even have to change randomly. Is there a way to just be able to flip a switch, the display powers up and have it wired to show something that isnt a letter or number? something that could be percieved as "alien" is what I am getting at.

If you could show me how to do this or point me in the right direction it would be awesome

Thanks for your help

Snake126, Could you be more specific in the help you need. For example do you need help with getting the parts, placing the parts on a proto board, soldering etc.
K7elp60

 

Just as an aside, it's usually easier to deal with common anode 7 segment displays rather than common cathode displays; as most drivers are designed to sink rather than source current. The displays you're looking at are common cathode.