If you’re not aware, there is such a thing as adorable little three digit LCD 7-segment displays. They come in a ten-pin DIP package and are just begging to be integrated into a project. The catch is they are just a tiny bit weird. Luckily for us all, [Nagy Krisztián] spells out exactly how to use them.
The first odd thing about these ten-pin LCD displays is that they have a footprint that doesn’t quite mesh with standard 0.1 inch spacing, meaning they will not cleanly fit into a breadboard. Luckily, one can solve this with a bit of force. It’s a small part, and the pins don’t seem to mind.
These little LCDs are adorable, but a bit unusual to interface with.
The second odd thing is wrapping one’s head around the pin mapping. Figuring out the table of which pins activate which segments in the digits is easier if one keeps in mind that each segment of each digit is the product of two different pins. For example, “2A” is digit two, segment A, and is the product of pins 3 and COM4.
That’s not all. Electrically speaking, driving this LCD isn’t nearly as straightforward as an LED.
