Adafruit Bicolour LED Square Pixel Matrix with I2C Backpack

by Adafruit

What's better than a single LED? Lots of LEDs! But adding an LED matrix can mean a lot of wiring and space. This little kit makes the whole thing simple and tidy!

It's called a Bicolor LED, but you can have 3 colors total by turning on the red and green LEDs, which creates yellow. That's 3 colors for the price of 2!

  • Driver chip has a built in clock so they can multiplex the display
  • Constant current drivers for ultra-bright, consistent colour
  • 1/16 step display dimming
  • I2C interface
  • Also available as a small 1.2" 8x8 and a 0.56" 4-digit 7-Segment display
  • Backpack comes with address-selection jumpers so you can connect up to four mini 8x8's or eight 7-segments/bicolor (or a combination, such as four mini 8x8's and two 7-segments and two bicolor, etc) on a single I2C bus.
The product kit comes with:
  • A fully tested and assembled LED backpack
  • 1.2" Bi-color 8x8 LED Matrix
  • 4-pin header

A bit of soldering is required to attach the matrix onto the backpack but its very easy to do and only takes about 5 minutes.

Adafruit have even put together a detailed tutorial showing you how to solder, wire and control the display and a library for the backpacks so you can get up and running in under half an hour.

Need more details? Check out the datasheet - this board/chip uses I2C 7-bit address between 0x70-0x77, selectable with jumpers

If you've been eyeing matrix displays but hesitated because of the complexity, this is the solution you've been looking for!