ABSTRACT

Arduino is an open-source platform used for building electronics projects. Arduino consists of
both a physical programmable circuit board (often referred to as a microcontroller) and a
piece of software, or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that runs on your computer,
used to write and upload computer code to the physical board.The MAX7219 LED driver
saves microcontroller pins and processing time. It uses only three IO pins of an Arduino. It is
easy to connect multiple displays by connecting DIN and DOUT pins. Using a single
MAX7219 you can drive 64 LEDs while you only need 4 wires to interface it to a
microcontroller. In addition to this, you can daisy chain multiple MAX7219 chips for bigger
displays. There are 16 output lines from the MAX7219 driving 64 individual LEDs. LEDs are
arranged as an 8×8 set of rows and columns. Each column is pulsed for a short time while the
row bits for that column are driven. The MAX7219 has a four wire SPI interface – clock,
data, chip select and ground – making it very simple to connect to a microcontroller. Here, we
are using two matrix displays to make a Scrolling Display. For cascading of multiple displays
connect DOUT of first display to DIN of second display in series. Keep CLK (clock) and
Load (CS) pin common (parallel connection). You can use readily available modules also for
making your own scrolling display.Here we will be scanning across the rows and feed the
column lines with appropriate logic levels. The program in the microcontroller is to determine
the speed of the scrolling message as well as message what we are going to display. The
technique will be demonstrated for right to left scroll, but can be easily implemented for
scrolling in other directions. The Sketch program for Arduino Uno is developed with Arduino
Software.
 CONTENTS
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1-4
1.1 Hardware and Software 2
1.2 Types of Arduino Board 2
1.2.1 Arduino Uno 2
1.3 Special Functions of the Pins 3

Chapter 2 MAX7219 SPECIFICATION 5-7

2.1 MAX 7219 5
2.1.1 Specifications 6
2.1.2 Features 6
2.1.3 Applications 7
2.2 Understanding MAX 7219 7

Chapter 3 MAX7219 LIBRARIES 8-12

3.1 The Maxim 72XX LED Controller IC 8
3.1.1 Library LED Control 8
3.1.2 LED Control Examples 8
3.1.3 Alternate Library Matrix – Sprite 9
3.1.4 Library MaxMatrix 9
3.2 A Bit Extra on MAX7219, MIPS and 3V3 Interfacing 10
3.3 Why does a MAX7219 save a Processing Time? 11
3.4 Using the MAX7219 with 3V3 Arduino 11

Chapter 4 INTERFACING MAX7219 DISPLAY `13-19

4.1 Hardware and Software Required 13
4.1.1 Hardware Connections 13
4.2 Matrix Display Interface with MAX7219 13
4.2.1 MAX7219 SPI Interface 13
4.2.2 Circuit Connections of Matrix Display 14
4.2.3 LED Dot Matrix Display 15
4.2.4 MAX7219 Driver 16
 4.3 Circuit Schematic 17
4.4 Wiring Arduino and MAX7219 8X8 Matrix Module 18
4.4.1 Wiring Layout for Two MAX7219’s 19

Chapter 5 THE ARDUINO CODE 20-34

5.1 The Code 20
5.1.1 Basic MAX7219 Arduino Code 20
5.1.2 8X8 LED Matrix Scrolling Arduino Code 25
5.2 Dot Matrix Display 1088AS 32
5.2.1 1088AS Row and Column Orientation 33
5.2.2 LED Signs 33
5.2.3 Websites and Scrolling Text 34

Chapter 6 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 35-36

6.1 Advantages 35
6.2 Disadvantages 36

Chapter 7 CONCLUSION 38
REFERENCES 39
LIST OF FIGURES

Fig No Page No

1.2.1 Arduino Uno 3

1.3 Description of Pins of Arduino Uno 4

2.1 MAX 7219 5

2.2 Architechture of MAX7219 7

3.1.4 MAX7219 and 1088AS LED drivers 10

3.4 Using MAX7219 with 3V3 Arduino 12

4.2.2 MAX7219 Matrix Display 14

4.2.3 Dot Matrix Display 15

4.2.4 MAX7219 Driver 16

4.3 Connections of MAX7219 with Arduino 17

4.4 Arduino Uno and 3 MAX7219 8X8 LED Matrix Modules 18

4.4.1 Wiring Layout for Two MAX7219’s 19

5.1.1 Output for Basic Arduino Code 25

5.1.2 Output for 8X8 LED Matrix Scrolling Arduino Code 32

5.2 Dot Matrix Display 32

5.2.1 Row and Column Orientation 33

6.2 Cost Comparision of Arduino and ATMEGA 37