Displays are fun, but a more advanced circuit is often needed to get them up and running.

Luckily, that's not the case with the 7-segment display!

A 7-segment display is a component with seven Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) - or segments - arranged as shown above. By turning on different combinations of the segments, you can show a number between 0 and 9.

To start playing with this type of display, you can try lighting up each segment by connecting it with a resistor to a battery.
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The next step is to try to show numbers. And for this, there's a handy little chip called CD4511 that will help you.

This chip takes a binary number as input and turns on the correct segments to show the value of the number on the display.

For example, an input of 1001, which is 9 in decimal, would turn on the segments a, b, c, f, and g so that a “9” is displayed on the 7-segment display:

Below is an example circuit where you can set the input number using switches:

To build this circuit you’ll need:

• A CD4511 chip
• A 7-segment display (For example LSHD-5503)
• Seven resistors (R1-R7) of 1kΩ
• Four resistors (R8-R11) of 10kΩ
• Four pushbuttons

This is a fun circuit to build as your first 7-segment display circuit.

Later, you can modify the input of this circuit to instead be the output of a counter that counts points in a game. Or seconds, to create a stopwatch.

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Keep On Soldering!
Oyvind @ build-electronic-circuits.com

PS! No matter if you're starting from scratch or if you've been at it for a while and want to strengthen your basics, here's how I can help you learn electronics:

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