Elektor.TV | How to make full-color 7-segment displays

by Clemens Valens | 01 December, 2015

Last week at Elektor.Labs we were honored by Coen de Bruijn stopping by to demonstrate the project he has been working on for the last year or so. Not satisfied with classic monochrome 7-segment displays we all know so well Coen set out to develop his own full-color 7-segment displays. After lots of experimenting and several rounds of prototyping finally the RGBdigit saw the light. Here is Coen's story.

Designing an electronic component that will work reliably on thousands of customer boards is not a task that you take on lightly, which is why most of us prefer to leave it to the semiconductor manufacturers with their huge teams of engineers and halls full of specialised equipment. Coen de Bruijn decided to give it a try anyway and started developing his own full-color 7-segment display. Based on the famous WS2812B addressable RGB LED he came up with a 7-segment display that not only can display millions of colors, but it also has only three wires. Here is how he did it.