Step Four: Interfacing With the 7-Segment Serial Display

In order to test my Serial 7-Segment display, I whipped together a minimal hello world sketch.

This logic can then be plugged into the temperature sketch discussed in the previous post.

Turns out that using SoftwareSerial, you can chat with the sparkfun Serial 7-Segment display quite easily:

	#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
	SoftwareSerial mySerial(2, 3); // Pin 3 on arduino to RX on 7-seg
	void setup(){
	mySerial.begin(2400); // Setup connection at baud rate 2400 (some may be default 9600)
	delay(50);
	mySerial.write(0x77); // Clear all decimal points
	mySerial.write((uint8_t)0x00); //write a 0x00 (without uint8_t an error is thrown)
	mySerial.write(0x7A); // Brightness 00 is brightest
	mySerial.write((uint8_t)0x00);
	mySerial.print("v"); // Reset current display
	}
	void loop(void)
	{
	mySerial.print("1234"); // Show 1234
	}

view raw gistfile1.ino hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Please note - as mentioned the display comes with a default 9600 baud rate. Mine got re-programmed due to a lack of pull down resistors (as discussed on the sparkfun product pages)!

Also note, many of the strange 'hex commands' send to the 7-Seg display were drawn from the data sheet. Reference it before doing any additional programming here (sparkfun user's manual).

TLDR;

Use the sketch above to get the your serial 7-Segment display up and running.