When I first saw them for sale in a catalog, I immediately knew I needed them! I just had to figure out a good use for them. Each kit includes two fairly large 7-segment LED displays from Velleman (K8063) controlled via RS232. Perfect for hooking up to a computer to display… digits..?
So I ended up buying two packages. Each digit required some soldering, and as it turns out – they were great for solder-practice! Since I hadn’t done any soldering for quite some time, I wasn’t really as good at it as I though… However I managed to build them all just as intended and I now had a four digit display.
![Velleman K8063 Velleman K8063](http://media.staffansprojects.com/2011/01/2010vq0-200x300.jpg)
The digits are fairly easy to control by a RS232 Serial connection. So I developed a software program that reads current weather information and displays the temperature on the four digits. Since I only have four digits I wanted to use them as efficiently as possible. Therefore I choose to display positive temperatures with one decimal and negative temperatures with one decimal only if it’s above -9.9°. The last digit shows a degree-sign (°), which is perhaps not the most efficient use of the digits, but anything else makes it more difficult for people to understand what the numbers mean.
![Temperautre display Temperautre display](http://media.staffansprojects.com/2011/01/2010vq2-300x200.jpg)
Besides just showing the temperature, I set up the software to alternate between temperature and time. Unfortunately, the Velleman K8063 doesn’t support colon (:), so I just use a period between the hours and minutes (13.45, for instance).