Raspberry Pi Cookbook

Chapter 13. Displays

13.0. Introduction

Although the Raspberry Pi can use a monitor or TV as a display, often it is nice to use a smaller, more specialized display with it. In this chapter, we explore a range of different displays that can be attached to a Raspberry Pi and learn how to use them.

Most of the recipes require the use of a solderless breadboard and male-to-female jumper wires (see Recipe 8.10).

13.1. Using a Four-Digit LED Display

Note

Be sure to check out the accompanying video for this recipe at http://razzpisampler.oreilly.com.

Problem

You want to display a four-digit number in an old-fashioned, seven-segment LED display.

Solution

Use an I2C LED module, such as the model shown in Figure 13-1 attached via a breadboard to a Raspberry Pi.

Figure 13-1. Seven-segment LED display with Raspberry Pi

To make this recipe, you need:

• Breadboard and jumper wires (see Prototyping Equipment)
• Adafruit 4 × 7-segment LED with I2C backpack (see Modules)

Figure 13-2 shows the arrangement of components on the breadboard.

Figure 13-2. The breadboard layout for an LED display with Raspberry Pi

For this recipe to work, you will also need to set up your Raspberry Pi for I2C, so follow Recipe 8.4 first.

The display has an accompanying Python library written by Adafruit. It isn’t installed as a proper library, ...