Very small displays, 7-segment and alphanumeric

Good day everyone.

I'm new to this forum, and english is not my native language, so if this is the wrong place to ask, please let me know.

I've tried hard to find *very* small displays on the internet, but with no luck so far. I'm looking for displays containing only one digit, 7-segment and alphanumeric, and four, sperated by a colon two by two. The height should be not more than 4, max. 5 millimeters. My father had two of them once, so they must exist.

If it is possible, different colors would be nice to have too.

I need them to make a scoreboard for a race-track: Recently I made "The worlds smallest race track" (

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) and now my next project is to make one that is even smaller!

I hope you can help me on this one.

Sincerely/Best regards Mads Aggerholm

Reply to
Mads Aggerholm
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Smallest production displays I can think of are for watches...

John :-#)#

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Reply to
John Robertson

Sounds like the old LED calculator displays - but they come in multiplexed strips of 8 or 10 and alphanumeric much rarer (even then).

I have seen individual digits, so there have been such things.

You might have better luck with the integrated "starburst" displays, unless they've improved the minaturisation since I last saw any; the package is a fair bit bigger than the digit.

They usually have binary inputs with some form of H/W protocol.

Reply to
Ian Field

Are you referring to the old style bubble type LEDs?

some came in clusters(arrays), and I suppose there was alpha types.

I think I have some in my drawers, get back to me if this is what you're looking for..

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

Thanks for the input everybody.

Of course, I forgot to mention it should be LED type displays.

I have found a picture on the internet that looks a little like the ones my father had:

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Sincerely/Best regards Mads Aggerholm

Reply to
Mads Aggerholm

Well, not exactly. I believe bubble-type could be used, but they are "viewing angle sensitive", and they need multiplexing. And they normally have 8-10 digits, and that is far more than I need.

But thanks for the effort.

Sincerely/Best regards Mads Aggerholm

Reply to
Mads Aggerholm

Mads Aggerholm schrieb:

What about a small graphical OLED display? You would use only those few pixels needed for the digits, the rest of the display becomes the black background. (I must however confess that I didn't check the availability of such displays yet, but it might be an idea...)

With OLED, you'd get only one color, however.

Tilmann

Reply to
Tilmann Reh

Have you looked at HPs vintage 7-segments like HP5082-7430 series yet? Like these:

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or here

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Their digits are 2.8mm hight and you can do a capital "A" and a lowercase "b" with 7 segments without a problem. In fact, you can do enough letters for a few more tracks, the first letter that does not work with 7 segments is "K". But the best feature of those tiny displays is that they have great output at only

5mA per segment and can be driven straight from an MCU. And they look very retro, too!

Nice video, BTW, pretty funny.

Cheers!

Reply to
Nick

I have forund pictures and descriptions of different displays around the web, but the problem is the 'vintage'-part. Those could work fine, but are a little hard to come by. I have so far found none that is for sale.

I could make the letters in an other way, the writing will always be the same. Maybe cut out of cardboard and a LED behind it. But the numbers have to be displays!

Thanks very much!

/Mads

Reply to
Mads Aggerholm

I've been looking for those too, HP or agilent discontinued them years ago. The last samples I had I somehow broke or lost.

they "spoke" 4 bit BCD for the alphanumeric versions.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

Let me know if you find any sources.

If you really want to go crazy, try to find the 7 segment indicator displays that had individual tungesten filaments for each segment. they were made like vacuum flourescent displays.

I last saw them for something like $50 each on the Allied catalog about 20 years ago.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

here we go, for really small incandescent indicators!

check out the KW105S

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surplus sales is a very strange place. I went there once.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

forgot the other link, for the LED display

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Reply to
Cydrome Leader

On Oct 30, 10:59 am, "Mads Aggerholm"

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Several small displays are shown at

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The DL1414 is has "magnified" height of 0.112". Data sheet at

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The ones in your video appear to be un-magnified (no distortion due to the lens), so I am guessing they could be MAN-3 displays.

Unfortunately, most or all of these are obsolete, and may be difficult to obtain. They were the latest technology in the 1970s.

Reply to
jfeng

you can get chip leds and solder them on a board in the format you wish..

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

I have found the

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but the "obsolete"-part is definitely the spoke in the wheel.

No, the ones I use is 5 mm displays, bought in a store. But now you mention it, the ones my father had many years ago, actually was MAN-4.

And I can see I asked for "4, max 5 millimeters".

5 millimeters is easy to obtain, and they are too big. It should be more like "3, max 4 millimetres".

When a model is this small, it takes almost nothing for items to get too big.

Reply to
Mads Aggerholm

Don't know how many of them do you need but here are some green ones:

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and red ones:

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It looks like nobody makes something like these any more. I tried to find anything like these of recent manufacturing (I would like to purchase bigger quantity, something like a hundred of each color) to no avail.

Those russian ones are pretty decent, I used them a lot when I was living in USSR something like 20 years ago.

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Reply to
Sergey Kubushyn

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Thanks *very* much!

I've been trying to find this for months - also on eBay! What did you search for on eBay to find these?

/Mads

Those russian ones are pretty decent, I used them a lot when I was living in USSR something like 20 years ago.

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Reply to
Mads Aggerholm

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I simply check what that guy has for sale from time to time :) He has some interesting "old" stuff that is impossible to find anything else. I'm buying 2D524 snap-off diodes, 1I308B tunnel diodes, and high-voltage rectifiers from him right now... Those are nowhere to be found or you are charged arm and leg for something like that.

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Reply to
Sergey Kubushyn

Another type springs to mind: - the TIL311, IIRC its a BCD 7-seg type with on chip decoder.

Probably obsolete like all the others, but you could try the NOS warehouses.

Reply to
Ian Field

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