Raspberry Pi Powers Art in Seven Segments

We love giant displays, so when news of a 26 x 20.5 inch mega-display which uses 500 seven segment LED displays and is powered by a Raspberry Pi 4 reached our ears via Hackaday, we were irresistibly drawn. The Raspberry Pi is much more than a credit card sized computer, and here we can see how artists incorporating technology into their work.

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As you can see, however, it’s perhaps not the highest resolution screen out there. Maker and artist Chris Combs has hacked together enough seven-segment displays (from two boxfuls he picked up cheaply, 500 in total) to create over 1,100 digits from 7,200 segments acting as a single unit with a neat 4:3 aspect ratio.

The trick is a Raspberry Pi 4 acting as a coordinating brain, which runs three different i2C busses, which in turn interface with the 48 IS31FL3733 controllers needed to push all the displays, which are wired in groups of six.

Entitled ‘One to Many’, the array of displays is on display at the VisArts Concourse Gallery in Rockville, MD, from September 3 to October 17 as part of Combs’ show called ‘Lossiness’, where it shows imagery related to automation and the replacement of humans by machines.  Combs has also logged the build should you wish to tackle this yourself.