Raspberry Pi Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14. Displays

14.0 Introduction

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

Some of the recipes require the use of a solderless breadboard and male-to-female jumper wires (see Recipe 9.8).

14.1 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 14-1, to a Raspberry Pi using female-to-female jumper wires.

Figure 14-1. Seven-segment LED display with Raspberry Pi

To make this recipe, you need:

• Four female-to-female jumper wires (see “Prototyping Equipment”)

• Adafruit 4×7-segment LED with I2C backpack (see “Modules”)

The connections between the Raspberry Pi and the module are as follows:

• VCC (+) on the display to 5V on the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector
• GND (-) on the display to GND on the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector
• SDA (D) on the display to GPIO 2 (SDA) on the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector
• SCL (C) on the display to GPIO 3 (SCL) on the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector

Note that Adafruit also supplies a jumbo-sized LED display. This can be ...