Jumbo 7-Segment Display from Glue Sticks, LEDs

Computers & Mobile Craft & Design Technology
Jumbo 7-Segment Display from Glue Sticks, LEDs

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More cool original content from Hack a Day, this time by Kevin Dady. He writes:

I was recently commissioned to make a device which uses a pretty large number display, and I went out shopping. The seven segment we liked best was still quite pricey, and would not fit our enclosure correctly anyway. We ended up going a different route, but it really got me thinking… What if you wanted to make something with a fairly large display? And how could one go about doing it cheaply at home?

I first thought about acrylic rods, but no one near me had any of small diameter, or at a decent price. Never mind that I don’t have that many tools on hand, and I could just see me trying to drill out the end of a thin plastic rod using a electric hand drill, and my knees as a clamp. Looking around the HQ I found my stash of glue-sticks. I thought would make an interesting display and it is easy to work with.

Before I knew it I had a working (serial and expandable) 9 inch tall 6 inch wide 7 segment display. I will be the fist to admit, its not spectacular in quality, or brightness, though the display itself did only cost four dollars in material. A quick and easy project, especially if you need a quick scoreboard or large clock.

Each segment consists of a hot-melt glue stick with shallow holes drilled at each end to hold the LEDs.

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6 thoughts on “Jumbo 7-Segment Display from Glue Sticks, LEDs

  1. Anonymous says:

    Mom… I need about 49 more glue sticks!! 
    mwahaha I will deplete glue stock of craft drawer… will this work in daylight? not so much?

  2. Anonymous says:

    Mom… I need about 49 more glue sticks!! 
    mwahaha I will deplete glue stock of craft drawer… will this work in daylight? not so much?

  3. James B says:

    I wonder how those cold cathode tubes,  that the case modders use, would work for something like this.  It might take a UCC1972, or something other than a basic transistor to fire it, but it would look cool.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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