Design and Implementation of A Led Dot Matrix Display

1Airoboman, A.E. and 2 Tyo, T.M.

1
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, Nigeria
2
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Benin, Nigeria

Abstract
Information passage and sharing is very vital in the world of communication. In recent years
there have been a call to modernize the information passage processes and going by the human
aesthetics taste for colorful and beautiful things and environments, there is a need, therefore, to
introduce aesthetics into the way information are displayed on billboard especially in a dark
environment which characterizes Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, therefore, the design and
implementation of moving message display based on microcontroller was carried out. The
display units which comprise transformers, ATMEGA microcontroller, Filtration unit, uses
Light Emitting Diodes LED in a 7 × 60 arrangement to form the predetermined characters,
which lights up progressively as an effect. Once the message is completely displayed, it latches
for a proposed time and abruptly disappears and the process is repeated over again with the
scrolling of characters.

Keywords: Display, Information, LED, Microcontroller, Signal.

Corresponding author’s e-mail: [email protected] website: www.academyjsekad.edu.ng

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Design and Implementation of… Airoboman, A.E. and Tyo, T.M.

I. INTRODUCTION for information passage. The display lights

The act of creating awareness to the public is up progressively as an effect. Once the
as old as human, right from the first day of message is completely displayed, it latches
creation. The beauty of the world as we know ON for a proposed time and abruptly
it today was made glaring with the creation of disappears; the circuit then resets itself to
light. The important of light can be traced begin a line scrolling of the character.
back to the accolades according to Thomas
Alva Edison when he successfully invented 2. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION OF
the incandescent lamp after nearly hundreds LED DOT MATRIX DISPLAY
of experiments. He was popularly known as Generally, the LED DOT matrix display uses
the person whose experiment was believed to some very smart techniques of digital
have light up the world. To this end, the switching and micro-computing [5][6]. The
advent of board display was invented as a circuit mostly comprises of power supply
veritable tool in the advertisement world and unit, signal generation, and control unit, port
this was achieved by inscribing letters on the expansion unit, buffer and driver unit, clock
board for members of the public for the input unit, and display unit. For the purpose
purpose of information. But with the advent of this study, a microcontroller chip
of the dot matrix which uses Light Emitting atmega16 was used. This chip and its
Diode LED displays, this made associated hardware periphery comprise of
advertisement easier and also improves on the signal generation and control unit. U1
the aesthetic nature especially during the through U8 are serial in parallel out shift
night. The uniqueness of the LED is that it registers (SIPO) with part number 74HC595.
consumes only a small amount of power These were used to route the control signal
[1][2], and has an estimated lifetime of coming from a few pins of Microcontroller
10,000hrs and produces an aesthetic visual Unit (MCU) to the output display drivers.
display[3][4]. The attractive nature of the This is essential since the MCU has a limited
matrix display makes it more persuasive to number of physical pins, hence few
both present and potential customers out connections for serial communication
there in the marketing sector; therefore it resulting in multiple parallel output signals.
should be embraced in the military, U10 through U16 are buffer and driver chips
universities, banking hall, filling stations etc. used to sink high current through the huge

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number of row light emitting diodes (LEDs). 4. MULTIPLEXING OPERATION

These integrated circuits can as well be easily Multiplexing is simply the act of selecting
replaced with transistor switches in very high one of many points. It is worth noting that
power applications. Clock input unit can be there is apparently no standard way of
any simple clock generation circuit e.g. a 555 performing the sequence of switching of the
timer astable multi-vibrator with variable rows and columns. Some implementation
frequency control. may put data on the row and select which
column it belongs to while others may do the
3. DIGITAL SWITCHING converse i.e put data on the column and select
TECHNIQUE which row it belongs. The later was used for
The method employed in creating characters our design. In both options, the concept is
on the screen is called multiplexing [7]. The known as multiplexing. To display a 5x7
screen used in this study was made with character on the screen, the control algorithm
individual LEDs connected in matrix form of fetches the digital stored array value of the
rows and columns and sectionalized. Each bottommost row of the character from
unit is a five by seven arrangement of LEDs. memory, spits it out through the SIPO shift
A unit can display a digit or alphabet or registers then selects the lowest row called
character at a time with its 5X7 matrix B1 in the schematic diagram. This displays
arrangement. For instance, to display an ‘A’ the content of row B1 of the character, some
on the screen, the equivalent of ‘A’ is stored delay is issued to allow the viewer to see it
as a 5X7 multidimensional array in memory. then the data is cleared. Subsequently, the
The storage is in digital form with 1 content of row B2 is fetched into SIPO
representing a lighted point and 0 register, some delay given, and the registers
representing a dark point. All possible are cleared. These steps are repeated through
characters to be written to the screen must be B7. The multiplexing operation results in the
stored in this format so that their binary entire shape of the 5X7 character we are
representations in memory are used to create trying to display. This is due to the
their shape on the screen in the multiplexing phenomenon known as persistence of vision
operation. in which a light beam incident to the eye is
retained for a while before it is discarded. The

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switching action is so fast that the eyes do not DESIGN SPECIFICATION

detect any flicker from the on-off switching. The proposed LED display consists of 60
columns x 7 rows of LEDs. It has a total of
5. METHODOLOGY
60 input lines to show a message. The rows
The method adopted in this study was
inputs and the column inputs are used for
based on the dot matrix arrangement of which
different tasks from each other; either for
LEDs are arranged in rows and column to
input data or to enable a row or a column.
display the information “WELCOME TO
Atmega16 microcontroller needs a few
THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL
external circuits (oscillation and reset). Also,
ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING NIGERIAN
once the control of ports on the Atmega16
DEFENCE ACADEMY KADUNA”. The
was established, through simple test
minimum allowable character size suitable
programs, the connection of the serial to
for the dot matrix arrangement is the 5 x 7,
parallel shift register chain was attempted. A
although higher numbers of rows and
microcontroller provides both dot matrix
columns arrangement exist. For the sake of
display elements and driver circuit
this study, the 7 x 60 arrangement was used.
substantially on the same circuit board.

Figure 1. (LED Dot Matrix on Strip Board)

It is mainly composed of an 8 pieces of are serially transmitted to the dot matrix

74HC595 shift register, one piece of ULN display element driver circuit as indicated in
2004darlington sink driver and one piece of Fig. 1. Firstly a single shift register was wired
74HC 259 buffers. Display control signals to the microcontroller, and then two shift
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Design and Implementation of… Airoboman, A.E. and Tyo, T.M.

registers were cascaded on the breadboard to integrated with the existing circuit.
trial the cascading process. As each new Characters were checked on a breadboard
section of the system was developed it was before building them on a stripboard.

Figure 2. The framed circuit

DESIGN CONSIDERATION out-door type is used because it gives a good
The major consideration in the design of and better usual display of whatever kind of
the dot matrix display is the type of light information of any time of the day with good
emitting diodes (LED’s). In this design, the clarity, As a result of the technology used.

Figure 3. Block diagram of the Led dot matrix display

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SIZING OF TRANSFORMER
𝑃𝑑𝑐 𝐿 𝑉
𝑇𝑈𝐹 = 𝑃𝑎𝑐 = 𝑃𝑎𝑐 (1)

Where TUF =0.693 for full wave and bridge and 𝐼𝐿 = 1.5𝐴 Maximum current

𝐿 𝑉
Therefore 𝑃𝑎𝑐 = 𝑇𝑈𝐹 = 10.82𝑉 (2)

Since the value of 10.82v, was gotten, A transformer size of 12V was used.

ELECTRIC LOAD

N.B the output voltage𝑉𝐿 = 5𝑉

Electrical load energy demand one day (EL) can be calculated as follows.

𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 = 5𝑉

𝑀𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 = 1.5𝐴

𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 24ℎ

𝐺𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑥 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 24ℎ 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦, 𝑤𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒

𝐸𝑙 = 𝑃𝑎𝑐 × 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 180𝑊 (3)

N.B From our previous calculations of the power was in respect to the transformer, we will now
proceed with our calculations

𝑟 = 0.1 𝑇𝑈𝐹 = 0.693 5𝑚𝐴 /5𝑣

𝑉 = 𝐼𝑅 (4)

5/5 × 10−3 = 1𝐾Ὼ

Current supplying LED’s=5𝑚𝐴 Each I(.E 35𝑚𝐴 𝑓𝑜𝑟 7 𝐿𝐸𝐷′ 𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑤)

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FILTRATION

𝑉𝐿 /𝐼𝐿 = 5/5𝑚𝐴 = 1𝐾Ὼ

𝑟 = 1/∜3 × 𝑅𝐿 × 𝐹 × 𝐶 (5)

𝐶 = 1/∜3 × 1000 × 0.1

𝐶 = 1/4 × 1.74 × 1000 × 50 × 0.1

𝐶 = 1/6.96 × 1000 × 50 × 0.1

𝐶 = 1/34800

𝐶 = 28.7𝜇𝐹

PIV= 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 0.7 (6)

𝑃𝐼𝑉 = 11.3𝑉

20.18 is not a standard valve so the below capacitor was used.

Capacitor=22𝜇𝐹 16𝑉

28.7𝜇𝐹 is not a standard value so we now used 22𝜇𝐹

For Regulation of the filtered dc voltage we use, a 7805 regulator IC

𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 = 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒/√2 (7)

5𝑚𝑉
𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 = = 0.0029𝐴
1.74

Power = 𝐼𝑉 = 0.7𝑊 (8)

𝑉−𝑉𝑑
𝐼(𝑙𝑒𝑑)= (9)
𝑅

5 − 2.8
𝑅= = 440Ὼ
5𝑚𝐴

𝑅(𝑇) = 440Ὼ(7 𝐿𝐸𝐷′ 𝑠)

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440
= 62.9 ≈ 63Ὼ is connected to each LED’s on the row.
7

EXTERNAL CLOCK INPUT (SIGNAL capacitor which together are used to control
GENERATING & CONTROL) rate pulse generation. 555 Timer was used to
This unit consist of 555 timer (IC), astable generate the pulse signal in term of the
multi-vibrator which generates clock pulse frequency and period of the message
signal, it also consist of a resistor and displayed.

Figure 4. Astable Multivibrator

1
𝐹=𝑇 (10)

To calculate the frequency of the 555timer used is as follows

1.44
𝐹=
(𝑅1 + 𝑅2)𝐶

𝑅1 = 1𝐾Ὼ

𝑅2 = 1𝐾Ὼ → 11𝐾Ὼ

𝐶 = 22𝜇𝐹

𝐹 = 1.44/(1000 + 8000) × 22 × 10¯⁶

1.44
𝐹= = 7.2𝐻𝑧
0.2

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1
𝑇= (11)
𝐹

1
𝑇= = 0.14𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑠
7.2

PORT EXPANSION LED dot matrix display. The device (LDMD)

As a result of the micro-controller chip which is a display device that converts
ATmega16 with limited number of physical electrical Signal transmitted from electronic
pins, the need for port expansion was device into optical signal transmitted using
introduced which consist of a serial in Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The modular
parallel out shift register (SIPO) with part test was carried out in the laboratory to
number 74HC595 resulting in multiple determine the variation between the ideal
parallel output signal. This is T8-bit serial-in, value and measured value of the parameters
serial or parallel-out shift register with output this is shown in Table 1.
latches; 3-state.
MODULAR TEST
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A software oscilloscope interface was used to
The AC supply to power the dot matrix measure the pulse signal generated from the
display (LDMD) is stepped down by a step- oscillating unit as well as current and voltage
down transformer. The AC 12v output from of each unit of the system, multimeter was
the transformer is rectified to DC output used to measure the input voltage, output
which is locked down by a regulator voltage and current as compare with ideals
transistor (7805) to give out a constant 5v DC voltage.
which is the required output to power the

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Table 1. Table of Experimental Results

QUANTITY (IEs) IDEAL VALUE MEASURED VALUE

INPUT VOLTAGE 240V (ac) 208.5V(ac)

OUTPUT VOLTAGE 5V (dc) 4.72(dc)

INPUT CURRENT 2A (ac) 1.4A(ac)

OUTPUT CURRENT 4.3mA (dc) 5mA(dc)

7. CONCLUSION Diode “Curtain” Display of the

Controlling a 420-LED’s moving message Characters (Elect/Elect Eng. Dept).
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