8x8 Red LED Matrix Display

This miniature LED matrix has everything a big LED matrix has, but bite sized! 64 bright Red LEDs are contained inside the plastic body, in an 8x8 matrix. There are 16 pins in total, 8 on each side with a 0.1" spacing so users can easily plug it into a breadboard with plenty of space to wire it up.

Since the display is in a grid, you’ll need to 1:8 multiplex control it. This can be achieved using a 74HC595 (Z8924) to drive the 8 LED anode connections, and a 2nd 74HC595 with a ULN2803 (Z3010), to increase the current handling, to drive the cathode connections. Arduino’s ShiftOut function makes driving shift registers like the 74HC595 a breeze. There also exists single-chip solutions such as the MAX7219 which include the anode and cathode driving circuits, alongside communication decoding to allow control via an SPI compatible interface.