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bremme / arduino-tm1637

Arduino library for using a 4 digit seven segment display with TM1636 or TM1637 driver IC
GNU General Public License v2.0
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SevenSegmentTM1637 Arduino Library

Arduino library for controlling a TM163x based 7-segment display module. These modules are sold under various names by various suppliers. For example:

They come in different sizes, colors and there is a clock (with a colon) and decimal (with four decimal dots) display variant. But the most common one is the red 0.36" clock version, this is also the cheapest one (you can get those for about $1.50). I've written this library using the above module, if I get my hands on any of the other variants I might add some specific code, for example to print floats on the decimal version.

TM1637

Hardware setup

TM1637 PIN Arduino PIN Description
CLK Any digital pin Clock
DIO Any digital pin Digital output
VCC 5V Supply voltage
GND GND Ground

Installation

Like any other Arduino library this library is installed by copying the files into a directory on the Arduino IDE search path. Most common is to put all files in a director in your sketch folder/libraries/SevenSegmentTM1637/. See installing additional Arduino libraries for more information.

Usage

This library uses the LCD API v1.0 so you can use the same functions/methods using this library as any lcd library which conforms to the LCD API. Furthermore this library (like described in the LCD API) inherent the Print class (See Serial.print() and for more details Print.h). This means that you can use all Print class functions/methods like you're used to when you're doing Serial.print("Something") or Serial.print(128, BIN) for example.

Basic methods

Advanced methods

Low level methods

If you still want or need more functionality, I've included two super classes:

If you use any of these super classes, you will also get all the basic, advanced and low level methods as well. If you use the fun class extension you will get the extended class methods as well.

Extended class extra methods

Fun class extra methods

For more extended information on what arguments all above functions accept and return see the header files of the classes (SevenSegmentTM1637.h, SevenSegmentExtended.h and SevenSegmentFun.h).

Trouble shooting

Todo

Changelog

Note

I spend quite a bit of time to build this library. I hope it will be useful to others. I decided to publish it, although there still might be small bugs. If you find one, just let me know and I will try to fix it. If you have any other suggestion, don't hesitate to contact me.

Sources

I've looked at many sources while constructing this library, bassicly all alternative Arduino TM1637 libraries and some AVR TM1637 libraries. While doing so I've found some really nice improvements compared to other implementations. For example, most libraries use a really low clock speed (~50us), I've tested with clock speeds as low as 1us and the chip still seems to respond well. Furthermore, from the (Chinese) datasheet it seems that you always have to perform three operation when communicating with the IC; set some configuration, set the address and send 1-4 digit data and set the display brightness. I've found out that this is not the case, you can do all of those separately if you want.

Still without all these fine examples it would have taken me a lot more time to figure out the inner workings of this IC!

Sources:

Keywords

People will probably Google for keywords when looking for a driver, so here are some:

TM1637 TM1636 library Arduino Led Driver 4 Digit Bits Digital LED Tube module LCD API Print.h Print class API display LCD AVR Atmega