Segment Library

Welcome to the Segment library! This is an Arduino library for 7/14/16 displays, wired up to the arduino using parallel (each segment with an I/O pin), with a decimal point (sega - dp) or with a shift register (clock, latch and data).

Installation

To install Segment, install it using the Arduino library manager, or manually from the releases page.

Using the library / syntax

Declare the library

You can either declare the library for use with straight wiring, straight wiring with a decimal point or with a shift register. You also specify whether you have a common cathode (one ground pin on the display and a positive pin for all the segments) or a common anode display (one positive pin on the display and a ground pin for all the segments). True is common cathode and False is common anode.

Seven Segment Display

STRAIGHT WIRING:

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//   Segments: a, b, c, d, e, f,  g,  c a/c
Segment sevseg(5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, true);   // Set the pins you want and whether the display is common anode/cathode

STRAIGHT WIRING WITH DECIMAL POINT:

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//   Segments: a, b, c, d, e, f,  g,  dp, c a/c
Segment sevseg(5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, true);   // Set the pins you want and whether the display is common anode/cathode

SHIFT REGISTER WIRING (decimal point or not):

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//       Pins: D, C, L,   , S, c a/c       D = Data, C = Clock, L = Latch, S = Number of Segments (7), c a/c = Common anode/cathode display
Segment sevseg(5, 6, 7, -1, 7, true);   // Set the pins you want, number of segments (7) and whether the display is common anode/cathode

An 8-bit shift register should be used. Output 1 of shift register should be decimal point if there is one, or not wired if there is not a decimal point. Output 2 should be segment a, output 3 should be segment b etc. all the way to output 8 > segment g.

  +-------------+ 1   ==========  dp +-------------+
+ |             | 2   ==========   a |  +-------+  |
C |    8-bit    | 3   ==========   b |  |       |  |
D |    shift    | 4   ==========   c |  +-------+  |
L |   register  | 5   ==========   d |  |       |  |
- |             | 6   ==========   e |  +-------+  |
  |             | 7   ==========   f |  7 Segment  |
  +-------------+ 8   ==========   g +-------------+

Sixteen Segment Display

STRAIGHT WIRING:

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//    Segments: a1, a2, b, c, d1, d2, e, f, g1, g2,  h,  i,  j,  k,  l,  m, c a/c
Segment sixtseg(2,  3,  4, 5, 6,  7,  8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, true);   // Set the pins you want and whether the display is common anode/cathode

STRAIGHT WIRING WITH DECIMAL POINT:

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//    Segments: a1, a2, b, c, d1, d2, e, f, g1, g2,  h,  i,  j,  k,  l,  m, c a/c
Segment sixtseg(2,  3,  4, 5, 6,  7,  8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, true);   // Set the pins you want and whether the display is common anode/cathode

SHIFT REGISTER WIRING (no decimal point as shift register is 16-bit):

#include <Segment.h>   // Include the Segment library
//        Pins: D, C, L, dp, S, c a/c       D = Data, C = Clock, L = Latch, dp = Seperate decimal point pin (optional, otherwise leave blank), S = Number of Segments (16), c a/c = Common anode/cathode display
Segment sixtseg(5, 6, 16, 8, 7, true);   // Set the pins you want, number of segments (16)  and whether the display is common anode/cathode

Since the shift register is 16-bit (or 2 8-bit registers), and there are 16 segments on the display all needing an output, there is no support for a decimal point (it would be unnecessary to have another shift-register just for a decimal point).

You should use a 16-bit shift register or 2 daisy-chained 8-bit shift registers. Output 1 of shift register should be wired to segment a, and output 2 should be wired to segment b etc. all the way to output 16 > segment m.

 Seperate Arduino Pin  ==========  dp +-------------+
  +--------------+ 1   ==========  a1 |             |
  |              | 2   ==========  a2 |             |
  |              | 3   ==========   b |             |
  |              | 4   ==========   c |  +-------+  |
  |              | 5   ==========  d1 |  |\  |  /|  |
+ |              | 6   ==========  d2 |  | \ | / |  |
C |    16-bit    | 7   ==========   e |  |  \|/  |  |
D |    shift     | 8   ==========   f |  +-------+  |
L |   register   | 9   ==========  g1 |  |  /|\  |  |
- |              | 10  ==========  g2 |  | / | \ |  |
  |              | 11  ==========   h |  |/  |  \|  |
  |              | 12  ==========   i |  +-------+  |
  |              | 13  ==========   j | 16 Segment  |
  |              | 14  ==========   k |             |
  |              | 15  ==========   l |             |
  +--------------+ 16  ==========   m +-------------+

SUPPORT FOR 14-segment and Virtual ASCII Art (Serial) DISPLAYS IS COMING SOON!

Commands

Printing characters

NOTE: When using a 16-segment display, replace sevseg with sixtseg or a different name so it makes it more obvious you are using a 16-segment display (the name of the instance doesn't actually matter)

You can currently print to your segment display most possible English alphanumeric characters and symbols. It is possible to print: Numbers 0-9, Letters A-Z and Characters "#$%&'()*+,-~/`:;<=>?[]{}.\^_!

The format of the function is sevseg.display(char charac).

Here are some examples of printing single characters:

  sevseg.display('A'); // Display letter A
  sevseg.display('5'); // Display number 5
  sevseg.display(';'); // Display character ;
  sevseg.display('G'); // Display letter G
  sevseg.display('3'); // Display number 3
  sevseg.display('!'); // Display character ! (only supported for display with decimal point)

Printing strings

You can also print a string to the display(s), and it will print all the characters. By specifying the number of displays daisy-chained, it will automatically scroll the text if there is more characters in it than the number of displays. Also, you can specify whether to clear displays beforehand. If not and a word is shorter than the number of displays, there will be a letter from the previous word on unused displays.

The format of the function is sevseg.displayString(String word, int displays = 1, bool cleardisp = true)

Here are some examples of printing strings:

  sevseg.displayString("Hello"); // Display Hello on 1 display, and clear the display beforehand
  sevseg.displayString("Good bye", 4); // Display Good bye across 4 displays, and clear the displays beforehand
  sevseg.displayString("OK", 3, false); // Display OK on 3 displays, and don't clear the displays beforehand (since there are three displays and two characters, the 3rd one will have a letter from the previous text on it as it isn't cleared)
  sevseg.displayString("Awesome!", 5, true); // Display Awesome! on 5 displays, and clear the displays beforehand

Clearing the display(s)

To clear the display(s), use sevseg.clear(displays), where displays is the number of 7seg displays daisy-chained (integer). The command will clear them all. To just clear one display (or, if you have multiple, it will be like a space/gap), use sevseg.display(' ') or sevseg.clear().

Fun features

There is also the sevseg.example(int mode, int delayTime, int semiMode = 0) function which lets you display fun stuff e.g. figure-8, tetris-like display and scrolling through characters. The fun function is selected with the mode integer, which is a number from 1-6. delayTime is the delay between when the frame is updated. Mode (-)1 is a character scroll, and semiMode is used to select which characters to scroll through. semiMode is not used for any other mode. Here is the modes and descriptions of this function:

NOTE: Putting a negative sign before the mode reverses it. eg. mode -1 and semimode 1 scrolls from 9 to 0
The modes for the example function are:
1 - Scroll through characters. Semimodes are:
    1 - Just numbers
    2 - Just letters
    3 - Numbers & letters
    4 - Numbers & punctuation
    5 - Letters & punctuation
    6 - Numbers, letters and punctuation (everything)
2 - Animate 1 segment around the display (default clockwise unless negative sign is used)
3 - Animate 1 blank segment around the lit up display (default clockwise unless negative sign is used)
4 - Animate move upwards (negative numbers makes animate move downwards)
5 - Animate in an 8 fashion (negative number changes direction)
6 - Animate all segments on (a,b,c,d,e,f,g order) (negative number makes it animate all segments off)

The example Fun_features.ino demonstrates all of these functions. See below.

Examples

The examples available for this library are:

Number_cycle.ino - Cycles through the numbers 0-9 and then blank. Go to File > Examples > Segment > [Display type] > Number_cycle.

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Segment

Install / Use

README