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#47727 - 24/11/2001 14:35 large 7 segment displays and controlling circuit
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
Hi.

I do have a problem. Like some of you know (probably those who checked my profile), I play wheelchair basketball, in an official hobbyist league (the lowest one actually). No my (or better: our) problem is that we have to get a scoreboard (right word?) including playclock timer and a count-down timer (8/24seconds, stopable and resettable to a specific time). This is where our problem starts: There are many available on the market, with prices over 1500 Euro (about 1300US$?). Our club simply doesn't have that much money, heck, we couldn't afford them for 500Euro, if they ever got that "cheap". Now I thought about building the displays myself, using self-built battery (or remote) powered LED based 7 segment displays (about 30cm/12" high). No problem there, I am even still able to decode 4bit/position to display the correct number (but would of course use a pre-built decoder for that, those are cheap). The only problem that is left (aside from the program to control it) is the microcontroller I probably need to drive the total of 10 single number displays.
Now, is there anybody on this BBS who is capable of building such a controller circuit and also willing to do so? I would not need an actual circuit board, just the design (and probably the program for the controller plus some documentation on how to use it), and I can guarantee that I would not make any profit from this.
I would like to post all the info that is needed to build such a device on my web page once it is finished. But only if no programmer/boarddesigner involved is against this plan, the primary goal is to built the hardware for our club, everything else is a plus.

If anyone knows a source for completely built scoreboards and 8/24sec timer for less than 400$ total, I would be very interested in that as well.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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#47728 - 24/11/2001 14:44 Re: large 7 segment displays and controlling circuit [Re: smu]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
What about those cheap little programmable LED signs like this one?

Some of them are serial-programmable. A club member with a laptop could operate it.

Dunno if those would be big enough for your purposes though. But they're certainly cheap.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#47729 - 24/11/2001 15:39 Re: large 7 segment displays and controlling circuit [Re: tfabris]
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
Hi Tony.

Nice link, very interesting, but actually too expensive. See, we do need a display for the score and total playtime (resp. playtime left) including an indicator for the current quarter and two displays for the 8/24 second timer clock. That are a display of 2+2 (score) with 2+2 (playtime in minute+seconds) plus 1 (quarter characters (or 7 segment displays) and two displays with 2 characters each (those two displays must show the same). The scoreboard including the playtime display is positioned at the middle of the field while the two 24/8 second timer displays are positioned at opposing corners of the field. And there are rules about the minimum size of each number displayed (15cm/6" for the 24/8 second timer, about the same for the others). The only displays with the correct size I found were >1000$ each, if I would use those, we would spend more than on a commercially available system.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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