LED Scrolling Display

The simplest way would be to buy a ready made module which you can program yourself.

They vary in colour, function, durability, size and ease of use with the top range ones selling for several hundreds of pounds (£).

There are some cheap ones which you would need to put in a box yourself, try a local catalogue company, maybe RS components (they are expensive).

John.

I bought one with 7 digits for about €60 from Pollin, Germany. I just checked their catalog, it is no more on offer from them at least.....

It would cost a lot more to build one, even forgetting the time for design & testing....

hi ,for a certain kind of project you need a 16 bit microcontroller,eeprom and as many as you wish led modules which are sold as blocks (7x5).I have some experience as i have tried to put on a led matrix display.It isn`t quite easy.Specialy the PCB production or wiring is complex.

Depending on the microcontroller you will chose you will have to write the software according to specifications.

Try MAX or WINBOND microcontrollers.They have guidelines on how to realize this kind of project with their microcontrollers.

hi thks for the reply, i think you are the right person to help me out with this project, pls i will like to display a message to be scrolling,the message is "WELCOME TO ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING" i no it might be quite technical but i really believe i can do it. i do not know how to start but i think with your help i can achieve it.

pls kindly give me the neccessary guideline and the materials needed. i am actually not good in programming but i belive i can learn, i am very optimistic that i can do it. pls try and do anything you can to help me

thks very much and God bless

16bit microchip?

you must be to0 rich to spend over your money.

one the simplest way is arranging all these led to that words serial and connect a resistor to limit current, then add current. it lights and show that words.

another use only 51 serial enough. to set led as matrix. and then program to show the words. easy.

CNPOWER, maybe I am alone, but your words do not make much sense in English....I have not a clue as to what you really wanted to say, sorry.

ok,i explain again

in order that others can understand what I said

Many thanks.

Scrolling LED is a simple

method to show any words or graphics. You can connect many LED and a switcher serially and then apply power on it. The switcher can be controlled to show variety of special effects, such as flash, change color, timing etc. like this.

Ha-ha, am I making a kidding? No, its really a products which stand on the wall of shops and firms along road.

If you want to show in way of dots matrix, see bellow plan. they are often useing at many high buiding and bond field as ad or message boards.

they are controlled by microchip and general speaking 4 dots(leds) are comprised to a pixel to show a white color.

If you can choice suitable rows and colums and strobe the pixel, you can display any images as you like, just like your screen display.

Its not too difficult to build it, if you familiar with digital tech.

Makes perfect sense to me Andy.

I wonder whether your Chinese would make much sense to CNpower though?

John.

John, Thank you for your support,

Andy point out my mistake is not a bed idea. pls dont accuse him. It will cause me to pay more attation to any words or sentences. sime times,when I read what I wrote last message, even me cannt understand what I was talking about.

My english learning is a fail, I forget words more faster than I learn new. I think its because my lazy. haha.

the original words what I want to say is" dont waste you money at more expensive microchip, in fact, only cheaper one can do the trick"

I may express a wrong meaning. he is a richman.

In fact if he want to display only several words, he can only use 51 series chip to do it. easy things, every electronican can do it.

Don't say that words. (I shalll explain why next thread) Im glad you read my great works . And I will appreciate you list all of the wrong sentences.
Below will become bull shouting as more one L was inserted among it. I really don't find it until now. very interesting. This can be collected into funny story book. There is only cnpower who can invent this great joke.
There may be something to do with digital tech. count one bull, two cows, three…
Remember, I can bring the world joy.

decimals of learner come across here seems to look for help, either tech problem or business or other things. Hundreds of volunteers waiting here are so enthusiastic for preparing to help others at any times. you may be one of them. but you seem too impatient, or because of other reason. you can say you dont understand me any more, but most of time I thought you can guess waht I said and my main idea of solving some tech questions.because you are language talent of being able to speak more than 4 languages. on other hand, it was below example betraied you that you can comprehend completely my words sometimes. I remember, not long before, you objected strongly my idea of connecting oscillator probe directly to main to measure its waveform. Instead of it, you suggest test it with multmeter. I said you forgot to tell the learner that he would have to set the multimeter knob at AC voltage step at first and settle at maximum position if he would have used the meter to test, then reduce step by step until he can read a reasonable value, otherwise, if he would put the knob at current or resistance step, that would be the worst case.I guessed you must be an excellent electrician and deal often with the multimeter all day long, so that you forgot this advice. tiny, but very impoortant for a primary operator.this might offend you a bit. if it was, I beg your pardon herewith. if your passion of help others is so high, you will suggest those, include me, word by word what is right, why or which... or correct sentences just do as same as other enthusiasts did. you might be interesting only in solving tech problem rather than language. becase here is not place to solve language problem? However, I think correct wrong sentences patiently is also helping others. Right?

decimals of learner come across here seems to look for help, either tech problem or business or other things. Hundreds of volunteers waiting here are so enthusiastic for preparing to help others at any times. you may be one of them. but you seem too impatient, or because of other reason.

you can say you dont understand me any more, but most of time I thought you can guess waht I said and my main idea of solving some tech questions.because you are language talent of being able to speak more than 4 languages.

on other hand, it was below example betraied you that you can comprehend completely my words sometimes. I remember, not long before, you objected strongly my idea of connecting oscillator probe directly to main to measure its waveform. Instead of it, you suggest test it with multmeter. I said you forgot to tell the learner that he would have to set the multimeter knob at AC voltage step at first and settle at maximum position if he would have used the meter to test, then reduce step by step until he can read a reasonable value, otherwise, if he would put the knob at current or resistance step, that would be the worst case.I guessed you must be an excellent electrician and deal often with the multimeter all day long, so that you forgot this advice. tiny, but very impoortant for a primary operator.this might offend you a bit. if it was, I beg your pardon herewith.

if your passion of help others is so high, you will suggest those, include me, word by word what is right, why or which... or correct sentences just do as same as other enthusiasts did. you might be interesting only in solving tech problem rather than language. becase here is not place to solve language problem? However, I think correct wrong sentences patiently is also helping others. Right?

Very mixed up grammar (do you use a PC program to translate? they are notorious for making a mess of things!!)....

No proper sentence or paragraph structure used

why don't you correct these sentences? bother to read it? you have only time to help others with their multimeter? elementary electric skill? I really don't think what you are thinking about?

are you helping others or only show others that I'm a specialist?

If its a college project...it wont be easy. Building the display will be the easiest part the programming involved is unreal. Best start googling there are many people who have done this before you. There are some classic sites with instructions on how to make them.

try looking at www.microchip.com they have a good range of microcontrollers.

You could start with this site. It should get you started.

If you really want to do it for a learning experience, then I would use a PIC. If you just want a sign you could buy one from here for $60.

http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1147

I have a display in my office from Olympic that's called an info-globe. It shows Caller ID, time, date and various programmable messages. You can find it here:

http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__WI701/source__10716/cm_ven__LINKSHR/cm_cat__feed/cm_ite__WI701/siteid__vPIPvbGDKE8-mBQLEMH_8KaB3iB3lYnTAA

It gets alot of comments and can be seen from any angle. The message appears to "float" inside the globe. I got mine on ebay for about $35.

You can buy these scrolling message displays and program anything you want. It's simpler and faster to implement. If your company is willing to let you take time to actually build one of these things, then a PIC would do nicely.

If you're pressed for time and money, you can take out the "welcome to" and shorten it to just "ELECT'L ENG'G". That way you can dispense with the PIC and just use diodes and resistors. If you want, you can change the message with a selector switch or a multiplexer.

I built a simple one once. All it did was display the words "PROD" (for production run), "CIP" (for chemical cleaning run), or "S/D" (for shutdown) at our factory. It was a 23×7 LED dot matrix all done with ordinary digital ICs and a bunch of diodes. That was 12 years ago. Last electronics project I ever made. No time for them anymore.

This guy works in the Electrical Engineering Department and he can't make a simple sign?

The hardware requirements are relatively simple as long as you have a power supply that can handle the sudden variations put upon it (from all LEDs off to all LEDs on would be a good test!!) and lots of latches or decoding addressing chips similar to hold a line or lines up/active as usually the display would be addressed as a matrix I would guess. I have not really given a lot of thought to this project I must admit!!

Something like (for 7 characters each 5x7 with space between them) would be 42 horizontal and 7 vertical)...... For each extra character, a further 6 horizontal lines would be required...Using Hex characters, you would need to be able to latch and decode 2F H = 48 bits, so maybe a 8 character display might be just as simple.....the bits are there!

I am sure there are better ways than I have described here, maybe someone would care to elaborate, it would certainly be good for me personally!!

But the software requirements are not so simple for someone with little or no software knowledge, so do not be too rough on the original poster!!.

In fact, although I am a lover of PICs and what can be done using them (not a real programmer, I only dabble!), I personally would be wary of using one with its limited memory and output lines, for such a job. Lots of decoding in software etc.... Someone who knows his way better in this area may of course take the opposite view.....as he does it daily for his work!!

I personally would try and buy a good PC interface card with supporting Windows compatible software and link my hardware to that!! Not a cheap way to go I suspect!!

Why not forget a LED scrolling display and just use a red fluorescent tube in front of which is an exposed film i.e. dark, with hole punches to display the message you want and motor drive it at the speed you want in a loop!!

John.

Scrolling LED display is old, 10 years old. Try one of these http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=5