That is a very nice display. I bet it works great with a wide range of ambient lighting, has a great viewing angle, wide operating temperature range, high noise immunity and laughs off any vibration you throw at it. For those reasons I can understand your desire to use an LED matrix - because LEDs just work. Reliably. Always. **
Mechanically more complicated but: maybe you could consider some type of lens to reduce the apparent size of a larger LED matrix, like the stackable Liteon arrays https://www.digikey.co.uk/products/en/optoelectronics/display-modules-led-dot-matrix-and-cluster/96
** OK, some of that depends on driver circuitry too but when using an off the shelf OLED you lose control over that to a large extent.
Edit: Ahh, this is for a simulator, so you have more options.
Yer for a flight simulator I'm not too worried about things like vibration but the viewing angle and good visibility in various lighting conditions is definitely a must. But as I said, the other important reason is to try to fit the thing into it's own boundaries. I don't want displays sticking out past it's perimeter.
EDIT & P.S.: I looked over the available OLED/TFT displays on digikey and none of them were of the right size
There are a lot more display types out there than are stocked by Digikey, so worth looking at other sources in case there is something that may fit.
Gocha, will look into it a bit more.
This is a great display unit. Want one.
These LED matrices are made of naked LED chips placed on horizontal traces and vertically connected by bond wires (like in this 4 digit alphanumeric display). You can still buy these as standard modules (4 or 8 characters 7x5 matrix), but yours is for sure custom made from pure unobtainium.
I've got another idea: in modern car dash boards, they use TFT LCDs masked by "instrument dummys" (so they get round shapes and whatever). If you place a large and brilliant enough TFT screen behind that mask, it'll at least look alike this original display.
This has peaked my interest... very useful thanks! I think I'll need some time to think this over. I'm pretty tempted to see how much a custom made one would cost if custom made is even an option. Unobtanium doesn't sound good, but I'm up to see just how unobtainium it is. I'm trying to figure out how it works though. It's as if each of those LEDs have only 1 terminal? Doesn't make sense to me how they wired it up. They have a strip connecting all the LEDs horizontally and then they also connect each column as well, so it seems like each LED is connected to every other one!
EDIT: I think by naked LED chips you mean each LED is basically not soldered to a PCB?
Hi PixieDust, just read your post about the simulator display and remember this https://www.4dsystems.com.au/product/uLCD_220RD/. I think maybe the YouTube video https://youtu.be/fRhZx4gfyCI has had a bit of post processing though.
Anyway, you said you were looking for square displays and something like the 4D systems uOLED-128-G2 1.5 inch display might come close to your requirements. From a practical point of view however, the display and driver PCB are stuck to the plastic carrier with double sided tape and I never had much luck getting them apart. Display is SSD1351U3, Phoenix Display DLC0150BNOF, and Mouser even have a breakout board 763-NHD1.5128128UGC3.
That's a nifty display. Unforunately, it's a bit too small. I'm starting to realise that square displays or round ones like you suggested won't work. As you can see from the instrument, the bottom of the round dials are cut off, plus, there's 7 segment displays below a few of the rows which would be impossible to have with small square or round OLED/TFT screens.
But overall, thanks, I need to think through this new info and do some searching and researching. Maybe I'll find something that suits.
Hi PixieDust, just read your post about the simulator display and remember this https://www.4dsystems.com.au/product/uLCD_220RD/.
Hmm, interesting. They must have gotten their hands on a batch of diplay meant for watches, I assume?
But these are quite expensive, "not recommended for new designs", and "out of stock" according to their website. I think for the multi-dial display Pixiedust is after, a larger rectangular screen behind an overlay is the simpler and lower-cost option. And the result would look identical, right?
Yep, if all else fails, this is the route I'll be taking. The only difference between the real thing and my replica will be a ticker plastic to accommodate the potentiometer and the buttons, which will need to sit on top of the screen.
I think it is possible to build this with 0201 size leds.
I experimented layout with seeed pcb service minimum design rules (3/3 mil and 0.1 mm via) see image.
Only two layer pcb is needed. Assembling it may pose own challenges.
It is likely necessary to in-fill space between leds with some black ink to reduce crosstalk.
Will be experimenting a bit to see if it's feasable. I have already thought about filling the voids between the LEDs to prevent cross talk as you suggested. Have a few ideas, not sure how expensive some of them are though or how realistic. Needs more thought and research. Thanks for the suggestion.
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