HOW TO CREATE A LIGHT DISPLAY USING A SEVEN SEGMENT DISPLAY!! EXPLAINED WITH IMAGES AND A VIDEO.

Light can be displayed in different forms, be it numerical or alphabetical form and you may want to wonder how it is being done.
Science has become developed in terms of light display, presenting it in different kinds of colours.
To display light,you will be needing an LED (Light-Emitting Diode), display segment which can be A Seven Segment Display ,Nine Segment Display, Fourteen Segment Display or Sixteen Segment Display.
But I will be working with the Seven Segment Display

In this tutorial, I will be Showing you how to work with a seven segment display, well explained with steps,images and at the end of the tutorial i also took my time to make A VIDEO of it,which i dropped at the end of the post.

DURING WORK

STEP 1

To start working on your seven segment display,you will be needing a breadboard.

A breadboard is an electronic board in which your electronic components are being mounted on but when using the breadboard, you do not need to make soldering on it, unlike the veroboard in which electronics component are being soldered on.

When using a breadboard, you can make detachments which do not result to permanent circuit.

NOTE: One part of the breadboard are connected vertically while the other part are connected horizontally.

STEP 2

To make connection between your breadboard and your seven segment, all you need is a jumper wire.

Which enables you to make connection from one point to another on the breadboard.
But for this tutorial, I will be making use of a network cable, cut to smaller size in order to beautify the connections

STEP 3

The Seven Segment.

A seven segment can be in two forms, the common cathode and common anode but in this tutorial I will be making use of the common cathode.

The word common cathode implies that all the negative pin of the LED inside the segment are connected/grounded together, making it eight pins in total.

Ideally the seven segment is made up of 8 pins making some persons refer to it as 8 segment, the extra pin makes up the doted point on the segment, this doted part is used for making decimals

STEP 4

To get the pin that represents each segment, you need a multimeter.

But first you set your multimeter to continuity and since we are using a common cathode,you will place the negative prong of the multimeter at the center pin and the positive prong of the multimeter on any of the pins and by that it will light up any segment in which the pin touches.

That is how we got the diagram below.

STEP 5

Make use of the resistors,in order to limit the amount of current that goes into the segment and by that preventing the seven segment for getting damaged, so I will be using a calculated resistor of 330 ohms.

STEP 6

The switch, which is used to put OFF/ON the seven segment.

And also I will be using a 9 volt battery which will be used to power up the circuit.

STEP 7

Place your seven segment on your breadboard as shown below.

STEP 8

Now I will be using the seven segment to write some alphabet S t E E n I t

BELOW ARE THE TRUTH TABLE OF IT

Using the truth table of column S.

Which implies that you will connect only all "1" and no connection for "0".

Using the truth table of column t, making connection of all "1" and no connection for "0".

Using the truth table of column E, making connection of all "1" and no connection for "0".

For the n column, I wanted to write the letter M but there are some exceptions when using a seven segment, you can write the letter M perfectly using the sixteen segment display.
Using the truth table of column n, making connection of all "1" and no connection for "0".