How to make a small LED scoreboard, and actually control it?

is there anyway i could like pick up some parts at a radio shack or someplace and create an LED display that i can control from a wireless controller. just a small one like a foot long and like 8 inches tall. so then i could control which lights turn on when i tell them to so they make a number. so maybe 4 or 5 led's across and8 or so high on each side. it would seem like a good project to try and complete and then can actually use itHow to make a small LED scoreboard, and actually control it?
Both guys have great ideas about how to do what you want. I like the wireless way, but when I went to school I dealt with TTL. Oh how I remember 7 segment LED's.


Brings back the memories, what left I have.


As hoosier daddy said, the parts are still cheap and a wireless receiver would be cool. most of these parts are avail from Digi key, there web site is digikey.com or toll free at 1-800-digikey


Give them a call, and a tech can help you with the wireless stuff. They have a kit you can build for cheap. They still have counter chips avail too.


Good luck with your project.


Great question too.How to make a small LED scoreboard, and actually control it?
This is actually very easy to do. In fact the biggest problem you'll have is that the parts you need are so obsolete that you might not be able to find them!





You can buy what are called 'seven segment LEDs', you know the ones with straight lines that make up a squarish '8'. You drive these with a TTL chip, into which you input 'BCD', binary coded decimal. You can get binary coded decimal out of another TTL chip, a 4-place counter.





If the above paragraph is Greek to you, you need to learn about TTL logic. Very simple, really. And CHEEEEEP! These chips cost like 20 or 30 cents these days. You drive them from a 5v power supply that you pick up at an electronic junk store, from a dead computer, for like $2.
An extemely easier than the above way is to buy a Micrcontroller (Arduino Decimilia, Picaxe 28x1, AltMega, etc) They cost around $30 but are worth it for any tech project, and from there use the outputs of the board and attatch a RC reciever to a transistor so it shuts off/on the power to the LEDs wirelessly
Radio Shaft went out of the electronics business years ago. Go to www.digikey.com and look around for parts. Parts are cheap and ship as soon as you put in the order.



I bet ur gunna need LED lights!