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Micro Dot pHAT

by Pimoroni

An unashamedly old school LED matrix display board, made up of six LED matrices each 5x7 pixels (for an effective display area of 30x7) plus a decimal point, using the beautiful little Lite-On LTP-305 matrices.

Use between 1 and 6 matrices in your choice of green and/or red. Perfect for building a retro scrolling message display, a tiny 30-band spectrum analyser, or a retro clock.

Micro Dot pHAT also works well with our other pHATs and HATs. You could use it in combination with pHAT DAC to display the audio spectrum, or with Enviro pHAT to display its temperature, pressure and light readings.

The MagPi said that Micro Dot pHAT was "certainly a cut above the standard seven-segment alternative" in their four star review.

Available either as a bare pHAT or as a kit with 6 red or green LED modules (you'll need to solder them yourself)

Features

  • 3x IS31FL3730 LED matrix driver chips
  • Drives up to 6x LTP-305 green and/or red LED matrices
  • Up to 30x7 pixels (5x7 per matrix plus a decimal point)
  • Micro Dot pHAT pinout
  • Compatible with all 40-pin header Raspberry Pi models
  • Python library
  • Female header and display require soldering
  • Schematic

Software

We've put together a comprehensive Python library to make using Micro Dot pHAT really simple, as well as a guide to assembling it, and a getting started guide to show you how to install and use the Python library.

23 customer reviews

a year ago
I like the micro dot pHAT as it works really well with these light matrix Pimoroni sells. I tried out the example code and was able to get things working in quick order without much issue. Soldering wasn't too bad albeit there were a lot of pins to solder in this full set so be aware you have some work ahead of you. I'd consider using these for future projects where I need to show off a counter of some form as it really gives a neat effect. Would recommend.
by Timothy about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
This needs some connection notes with it otherwise it will not be used
by Roger about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Beautiful displays - I first used these individual chips over 50 years ago; these are much easier to use with the integral driver - thank you Pimoroni.
by John about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Have to say was bit in doubt about these but are very easy to use setup was great and straightforward the support for these are well set out
by Alan about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
I love the retro feel of this display. I have it attached to a Raspberry Pi WH and I'm using it as a clock just above my computer monitor. It's brilliant. The display is easily clear enough to read without blinding you. I used the clock example from the Getting Started Guide and just set it to run automatically when the Pi boots. There's a bit of soldering involved but it's quite straight forward.
by Jamie about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
These little creatures of lighty-up brilliance are so awesome! I want to buy more! 😂
by Dan about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
A Beautiful thing and great fun for experimenting with python! The soldering took some time and I had to resolder some joints. It is very easy to use with the fantastic python library!
by Anonymous about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Beautiful display. Ive made a clock with one, and plan on adding another to a small raspberry pi computer (cyberdeck) I’m putting together.
by R about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
fast delivery and well packed. Easy to solder, works fine
by Anonymous about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Looks cool, easy to use (thanks to the Python library) and not too difficult to solder.
by David about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
My second kit. With my fist i created a RetroClock and now comes an info-display. I recommend it
by Daniel about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Super afficheur mais il n'est pas soudé (les led et le connecteur) ce fut pour moi une première qui c'est bien déroulée. Tout fonctionne très bien. Branché sur un pi zéro w cela fait une super horloge connectée qui donne aussi la météo, ( température, description du temps, vent) la date etc bref je m'amuse bien avec python et la librairie microdotphat. Que du bon. Tout assemblé et programmé en une après midi. Maintenant j'aimerais bien faire un Scroll vertical sur les digits de l'horloge pour une belle transition quand les chiffres changent mais cela semble plus compliqué :-) si vous avez des exemples je suis preneur.
by MATTHIEU about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
The LED matrices look amazing, proper retro futuristic styling and very easy to build as well. The python library is very easy to use and I was up and running in no time.
by Matthew about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
7 years ago
This is very nice retro display, I am planning to use it for a clock project. Assembly is quite straight forward, but one must make sure the displays are properly pressed to the PCB, otherwise they will get misaligned. It would be convenient to have Arduino libraries for it too!
by Ladislav about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
7 years ago
The first thing I did was wrap a REST API around it: https://github.com/pikesley/pHAT-REST/blob/master/README.md Then I built a Towers Of Hanoi solver to run on it: http://sam.pikesley.org/projects/hanoi-jane/ This thing really is a lot of fun, think I might get a green one next...
by Sam about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
8 years ago
I'm fairly experienced with soldering so it didn't take me too long to build the display and the final result is spectacular. I'm using mine as a clock with automatic brightness control so it is as dim as it can go at night and full brightness at midday with a slow transition between the two over a few hours. the dimmest setting is dark enough to not be intrusive at night, which is great! The only negative I would say is that it does produce a noticeable high pitched buzzing / humming noise when the brightness is turned up but it is silent at the dimmest setting so this isn't a big problem for me.
by Ashley about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
8 years ago
First of all - this is my first DIY project that required actual soldering (for GPIO I've used brilliant hammer-head, but the LED's had to be soldered the old fashioned way ;)) so it was quite a bit of challenge for me since I haven't used soldering iron before. But the actual assembly wasn't that difficult and it was quite fun. The display itself looks really nerdy and gives you enough space to display some notifications. The beauty of it is that you have to think of a way to use 6 LED-matrix display to display enough information in a user friendly way. The python library however supports various ready-made commands that are easy to use and the examples provide enough inspiration to get you started.
by Pavol about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
8 years ago
This phat looks great and has a good library. The one thing that lets it down is the spacing between the matrix is a bit too big for the horizontal scrolling text to look as good as it could. Every other functions looks great especially the vertical scrolling. Despite the amount of pins to solder I had it up and running in little time and only had one row of LEDs not working that I had to go back and check the solder.
by Shane about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
9 years ago
This is a great little kit that turns into one of the best Pi HAT's I have seen. IMO this is a must have pHAT for all Pi and Pi Zero owners to either enhance other HAT's and/or projects or to use alone for some pixel blinking and scrolling fun. Easy to use with some fairly simple coding thanks as always to the great libraries, examples and tutorials from the folks of the good ship Pimoroni. Cheers guys!
by N about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io
9 years ago
These beautifully designed matrices fit perfectly in any retro or cyberpunk project. Display them in all their glory, with the red or green traces showing how each row and column is hooked up. Or add a diffuser (like the one that comes with the Scroll pHAT Message Kit) to hide the pattern, and smooth out the graphics. You'll have to solder 118 pins for a fully decked out Dot Micro pHAT, but it's easy enough if you follow along with the steps in the assembly guide, and the result is definitely worth the effort. Communicating with the IS31FL3730 driver chips over I2C is effortless with Pimoroni's Python library, with plenty of examples that'll have you scrolling the lyrics to the Bilge Tank song in no time. Pimoroni cleverly skipped the I2C address used by the Scroll pHAT, which means you can connect a Dot Micro pHAT and Scroll pHAT (or any other I2C device that doesn't use 0x61, 0x62 or 0x63) at the same time!
by Rene about Micro Dot pHAT via REVIEWS.io

4 user photos