Adafruit Small 1.2" 8x8 LED Matrix w/I2C Backpack

by Adafruit

What's better than a single LED? Lots of LEDs!

A fun way to make a small display is to use an 8x8 matrix or a 4-digit 7-segment display. Matrices like these are 'multiplexed' - so to control 64 LEDs you need 16 pins. That's a lot of pins, and there are driver chips like the MAX7219 that can control a matrix for you but there's a lot of wiring to set up and they take up a ton of space.

At Adafruit they feel your pain! After all, wouldn't it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That's where these lovely LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in three flavors - a mini 0.7" 8x8, these small 1.2" 8x8 and a 4-digit 0.56" 7-segment.

The matrices use a driver chip that does all the heavy lifting for you: They have a built in clock so they multiplex the display. They use constant-current drivers for ultra-bright, consistent colour (the images are photographed at the dimmest setting to avoid overloading the camera!), 1/16 step display dimming, all via a simple I2C interface. These 1.2" matrix backpacks come with three address-selection jumpers so you can connect up to eight 1.2" 8x8's together (or a combination, such as four 1.2" 8x8's and four 7-segments, etc) on a single I2C bus.

The product kit comes with:

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.

Of course, in classic Adafruit fashion, they also have a detailed tutorial showing you how to solder, wire and control the display. They even wrote a very nice library for the backpacks so you can get running in under half an hour, displaying images on the matrix or numbers on the 7-segment. If you've been eying matrix displays but hesitated because of the complexity, this is the solution you've been looking for!

TECHNICAL DETAILS

This board/chip uses I2C 7-bit addresses between 0x70-0x77, selectable with jumpers.

Datasheets, Fritzing object, EagleCAD PCB files and more in the tutorial!