Multiplexed Seven Segment Displays.
We have discussed the basics of seven segment displays on our tutorial “Using Seven Segment Displays with AVR MCUs”. So you should be familiar with them. In this tutorial we will discuss about multiplexing of seven segment displays.Multiplexing is required when we want to interface 3 or 4 or even more such displays with MCUs since it we go for normal way it will require lots of IO port. So the smart way is multiplexing. Multiplexing achieved by tricking our eyes. Only one display is active at a time but we see all of them active. For multiplexing all the displays are connected in parallel such that if you activate any segment, say ‘a’ the ‘a’ segment of all displays glows up. But the trick is that we can switch on and off the “common” line of the displays under MCU control. So if we wish to light up the ‘a’ segment of display 2 we simply switch on display 2 first by applying proper level at the base of its driving transistor as shown in figure. Fig – Multiplexed Seven Segment Displays. If we like to display the digit say “123” on three displays first we select disp-3 by applying a “low” level at the base of transistor Q1 and output the code of required digit at the data […]