Your predictions were 100% accurate. It's a common anode display and pin 6 does nothing.
Thanks for confirming and good luck with your project.
And as an extra note, while I had you using a 470 ohm resistor to test the display segments, you could have used a smaller resistor, like 220 ohms or 330 ohms, and the brightness of the LED segments would have increased. Or if you had used a larger resistor, like 1K ohms the segments would have just been dimmer. You might want to play around with the different values of resistors to see which one gives the brightness you prefer.
I once had a digital clock that had a switch that made the LEDs on the clock change brightness, so all it was doing was adding, or taking away, resistance in the circuit to each segment. And the dash lights on my vehicle change brightness depending on whether it is dark or light outside. So there is a light sensor that is automatically changing the resistance depending on the light conditions.
SteveG
Wow!!! That's a good idea. Today I was changing the connections on the breadboard and tested my seven segmented display and displayed all the digits from 0 to 9.
I don't know how many of these devices you have, but if only one, you might try the exercises below.
Exercise 1:
- Blink the decimal point once every second (make it on for 1/2 second then off for 1/2 second).
- Then display the numerals from 0 to 9, with a one second pause between each number,
- If have two devices set the second one up to count the tens of second.
Exercise 2:
- Update the displayed digits every 60 seconds, thereby simulating the elapsed minutes of your blinking decimal point.
- Now simulate the tens of minutes.
- Or if you have 2 devices set the second device to count the tens of minutes.
If you have four devices you could simulate the minutes and seconds of a clock display. If you have 6 devices you could simulate the entire clock display. And the experimenting goes on!
Good luck.
SteveG
I don't know how many of these devices you have, but if only one, you might try the exercises below.
Awesome. I have one of those (7-segment display). Had been thinking of putting it to use, and now I have a couple of exercises to do. I mean, I used it just once, but as it is a singleton, there was nothing much I could think of. 🙂
Life is exploring and learning
Well you even expand the exercises to use the one display to start counting the hours from 0 through 9.
Set the display to 0, start counting seconds, when you reach 3600 increment the hour to 1, and so on.
Makes a much better clock display if you have six devices, and a RTC to add to the mix.
Have FUN! This is what it is all about.
SteveG
Now that you have resolved your problem with the help from forum members, it would be great for you to provide a schematic for your device, simply for future reference if someone else has trouble finding out the same details.
Cheers.
Will this do?
I don't know... but something doesn't look right to me... looks like you have 2 VCC's? and which are the commons?
Here is an example from a datasheet that you can model upon:
Cheers.
Actually you are right. My display is a common anode type. So, connecting the 5V to any of the two pins labelled as VCC will do. I just wanted to show, that the device is common anode type. But I think, I have made a mistake in the diagram in this manner. Please pardon me for this. 🙂
I think his diagram (other than labeling the commons as Vcc) better represents his device. His decimal point is on pin 9 not 6, as 6 is not connected to anything on his device. Pin 6 would have been for an additional decimal point in the lower left corner of the device. His diagram definitely has the right number of pins. But it could have included the pin numbers.
SteveG
I intentionally didn't give the pin numbers, as pins 4,5,12 don't exist at all. So, the relative numbering of the remaining pins might confuse a noob. That's why I didn't give the pin numbers. I can remake this diagram along with this change, if you want.
Doesn't really matter to me, but pin numbers might help noobs. Remember you were trying to figure out what pin was what as well. The diagram i sent that had both the common Anode and common Cathode gave pin numbers and indicated which pins were missing, but there was no indication there as to which pin was connected to which segment. And frogandtoads diagram didn't fit to well with your real world device.
And just so you know you don't need to respond to every post if it doesn't add real value.
SteveG