Crazy idea of the day: calculator display support

Proffieboards
1

So I’ve seen these red calculator displays a fair amount:

https://www.slothfurnace.com/sabers/ANH_Vader_V2_LED_Clampcard.html

But I don’t think I’ve seen a functional one.
At first I was thinking that I could just hook it up to a bunch of WS2811 chips, however the math on that doesn’t look great, as I would need:

\frac{7 * 8}{3} = 18.666....

WS2811 chips…

However, there are parts available that can drive 8 8-segment LEDs, they just turn on one number at a time. These parts uses i2c for control, so hooking it up to a proffieboard would be pretty easy.

I guess the question is: Is there an interest in making these things functional? What would you actually show on there?

1 Like
2

It would be nice to make them functional, but last I had heard they are hard to come by. At least the display LEDs themselves. Like nixie tubes they aren’t really made anymore, at least not the ones that are on the slothfurnace example. Maybe if you can find similar out there.