“Ever since I had solar panels installed on my roof I wanted a display showing the power they generate. The setup I have can produce up to about 3 kW so four digits is needed.
I want it to be visible from a few meters distant so a small LCD, OLED or LED display isn’t good enough. I also has to be bright enough to be readable in bright sunlight. Of course I can go out and buy such a display but if I had done that, you wouldn’t be reading this…
Most devices I make are for me only and so I never bothered to design a PCB for it. But in this case the idea of putting a large number of LEDs on perfboard and having to connect them all with wires is not something I was looking forward to do, so it has to become a PCB. So I did. But this brought up some design questions.
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Design files and arduino code for testing can be downloaded from Gitlab.
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Supplies:
Kicad Schematic Capture & PCB Design Software
Per Digit:
28 x Cree J5630 led
2 x Capacitor 100nF 0805SMD
1 x Resistor 1k ohm 0805SMD
4 x Resistor 100k ohm 0805SMD
1 x pinheader 6 pins right angle
1 x pinsocket 6 sockets right angle
1 x STP16CP05 (led driver)
1 x APE8865N (3.3V linear regulator)
1 x PCB (made by PCB manufacturer)”