Use of Arduino to drive the Open Cockpit 7 Segment Displays

[Masterploxis]

Hello,

after some absence from the simulator business i have found out that Arduino in connection with Mobiflight is a powerful way to control and drive various hardware. As i have have finished most of the panels using Open Cockpits Hardware - i wonder if it is possible to drive the Open Cockpit 7 Segment Display panels also with Arduino.

As far as i am informed, a max7219 board needs to be used with Arduino. These boards are prefabricated with 4 digits or 8 digits.

I cannot use these boards as i would need to rework all panels to house the big max7219 boards.

What i want to know is - can i easily connect the Open Cockpit 7 segment displays with a max7219 card (placed somewhere else, just wired to the segment displays) and connect this to the Arduino ?

Any help is highly appreciated

Andy
www.masterploxis.de

[ame]

I'd suggest "yes". The Open Cockpits displays are common-cathode, and so are the MAX7219 drivers, which is a good start.

If you have the MAX7219 boards then you could desolder the displays and then connect wires to the Open Cockpits modules.

You need to know the pinout of the Open Cockpits modules, and the pinout of the MAX7219 chip, then connect the segment pins abcdefg and dp, and the digit pins (digit 1, digit 2, etc.)

It should work.

[Joe Lavery]

Yes is the answer, I have used the MAX7219 chips with my own seven segment displays mounted on a daughter board I had fabricated in china.
As Ame said you only need the pinouts of the OC displays and the MAX7219 which I have attached. It's free to download anyway. 

Mobiflight is brilliant if you don't want to learn how to code the Arduino yourself.  There are plenty of examples on YouTube and the forum is great.

Hope that helps.

[Masterploxis]

Hello,

after some desoldering and damaged boards - i finally was able to connect an Open Cockpits Segment Display Board via MAX7219 Tube to Arduino.

Thanks
Andy.