I’ve been experimenting with the 4 digit display and have got it to output the current time. However, I’m having trouble getting it to show a colon. I’m likely missing something simple but I’ve been staring at the code on GitHub for far to long. How do I display the 8th bit?
# Grove 4 Digit Display - set 7 individual leds of a segment
# segment: (0-3)
# leds: (0-255) or (0-0xFF) one bit per led, segment 2 is special, 8th bit is the colon
def fourDigit_segment(pin, segment, leds):
write_i2c_block(address, fourDigitIndividualLeds_cmd + [pin, segment, leds])
time.sleep(.05)
return 1
If I’m reading that right then you have 0-3 being the digits and somehow if I assign fourDigit_segment 8 bits I should get a colon, I’m also wondering what is special about segment 2.
Here is the code I’m using for the clock:
import time
from datetime import datetime
import grovepi
# Connect the Grove 4 Digit Display to digital port D5
# CLK,DIO,VCC,GND
displayPin = 5
displayBrightness = 8
grovepi.pinMode(displayPin,"OUTPUT")
while True:
try:
currentTime = datetime.now().strftime( "%H%M" ) #get current time
timeArray = map( int,str( currentTime ) ) #map to array
grovepi.fourDigit_init( displayPin ) #initalize
grovepi.fourDigit_brightness( displayPin,displayBrightness ) #set brightness
grovepi.fourDigit_digit( displayPin,0,timeArray[0] ) #first digit
grovepi.fourDigit_digit( displayPin,1,timeArray[1] ) #second digit
grovepi.fourDigit_digit( displayPin,2,timeArray[2] ) #third digit
grovepi.fourDigit_digit( displayPin,3,timeArray[3] ) #fouth digit
#flash on and off the colon every half second
grovepi.fourDigit_segment( displayPin,4,11111111 )
time.sleep(.5)
grovepi.fourDigit_segment ( displayPin,4,00000000 )
time.sleep(.5)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
grovepi.fourDigit_off( displayPin )
break
except IOError:
print ("Error")
I know the problem is with the segment code just not sure where to go to fix it. Any help would be much appreciated.