Demonstration using Python to display messages on the Adafruit 16x8 LED Backback
This project has some helper classes and python modules which can be helpful in displaying scrolling messages, shapes and the time of day on the
Adafruit 16x8 1.2'' LED Matrix+LED Backpack.
http://www.adafruit.com/products/2042
This code was inspired heavily by the Matrix8x8.py code provided by Adafruit and the sample trinket scrolling code. I wanted to incorporate scrolling from the Raspberry PI and therefore wanted a python solution so I created this git repo.
This repo does use the Adafruit libraries which I copied into my repo only to colocate the working version with my version. The latest versions can be found here:
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_LED_Backpack https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_GPIO
The code assumes an orientation of the LED Backpack such that the 0,0 pixel is the upper left corner where left is the same side as the connector.
setup.sh
Simple setup script to get the raspberry pi setup to display messages.
Matrix16x8.py
This class is very similar to the Adafruit Matrix8x8 but will scroll across the 16 LEDs using a bitmap font. You can test the Matrix16x8.py with the following command on the Raspberry pi ( assuming you have everything configured. See setup.sh )
sudo python Matrix16x8.py
Matrix16x8TTF.py
This class is similar to Matrix16x8.py except that it uses TTF font and creates an image of the text and scrolls the image. If you want to use a TTF font that looks good on a 16x8 matrix display, you can use this class to display messages. It does not perform as well while creating the images, but once created it scrolls very smoothly.
sudo python Matrix16x8TTF.py
showtime16x8.py
This test file will show the time on the LED matrix, blinking the colon to show it is working every second.
tools/16x8Matrix-Numbers09.numbers
This is a spreadsheet I used to create some of the bitmap letters, numbers and shapes. If you type a 1 into a cell, it will change the color and give you the hex value for the column.
Youtube demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTNiumuMFHg&list=UUMMOWGymcHR5Wde_c1Z0P0w