I wouldn't mind LED's because I have like 200 blue led's I picked up back home in the old country almost 1 cent a peice. But the other way sound cheesy but as long you can't see the light in the middle and just the dots that will work also.

Oh yeah I forgot one other thing what if I wanna add a light sensor to it so it turns on at night, where can I get a diagram of this circuit?

 

I saw a site addressing this idea a while back but I can't remember where now. Seems like it would work but I agree it's dangerous for a beginner, especially in something which is presumably going to be out in the weather. I like breaking them into sets for a more practical voltage, even though it means more resistors and (very slightly) more work.


Torben

 

I don't suppose you happen to know the voltage? If not try a few at 3V and 15mA. [Edit: I mean, try a few LEDs from the batch, one at a time--just to get an idea of what the batch is like.]

Depends on what the display circuit itself ends up looking like, as you'll need to take the amount of power you need to switch into consideration. In the meantime you can Google for something like "LDR switch" or "dark alarm schematic" and read up on it.

When you're Googling for example circuits, you may have better luck if you use the word "tutorial" instead of "tutorio" if you're looking for English pages.


Torben

 

For two digit house # I purchased two 7-segment 3-inch size. Wired it for my number "23". Each segment VF (forward voltage) was 7 volts. You may calculate resistor value for each segment according to following formula. source voltage-VF/I (Current). In my case it was 12volts-7volts/.01(Amp)=470 ohms.