feel your pain! After all, wouldn't it be awesome if you could control two matrices without tons of
wiring? That's where this lovely 16x8 LED matrix backpack comes in. It works perfectly with the
matrices we stock in the Adafruit shop and makes adding a bright little display trivial.
The 16x8 backpack is also great for making scrolling displays or small video displays. In our
example, we set it up so words flow from one matrix to the other - kind of like a sign in front of
a miniature car dealership. We powered the demo with a Trinket - not included - so it all comes
in a nice compact package.
The backpack uses a HT16K33 driver chip that does all the heavy lifting for you. This chip has a
built in clock so they multiplex the display. It uses constant-current drivers for ultra-bright,
consistent color (the images above are photographed at the dimmest setting to avoid
overloading our camera!), 1/16 step display dimming, all via a simple I2C interface. Each matrix
backpack comes with three address-selection jumpers so you can connect up to 8 x 1.2" 16x8's
together on a single I2C bus.
This kit comes with:
A fully tested and assembled 16x8 1.2" LED Backpack
2x ultra-bright round 8x8 red matrix
4-pin header
A bit of soldering is required to attach the two matrices onto the backpack but its very easy to
do and only takes about 10 minutes.
Of course, in classic Adafruit fashion, we also have a detailed tutorial showing you how to
solder, wire and control the display. We even wrote a very nice library for the backpacks so you
can get running in under half an hour, displaying images on the matrix or numbers on the 7-
segment. If you've been eying matrix displays but hesitated because of the complexity, this is the
solution you've been looking for!
TECHNICAL DETAILS
LEARN
Backpack Dimensions: 72mm x 32mm x 2mm / 1.25" x 2.8" x .08"
Matrix Dimensions: 32mm x 32mm x 7mm / 1.3" x 1.3" x .3"
Pin Length: 13mm / 0.5"
Matrix Datasheet
This board/chip uses I2C 7-bit addresses between 0x70-0x77, selectable with jumpers.
Datasheets, Fritzing object, EagleCAD PCB files and more in the tutorial!