In 2004 I designed the driver board and did firmware programming for a series of custom-made led displays created by GK Tech for a Japanese brand The Shop TK. The concept for the displays was to spell out the name of the shop in large animated letters that look like characters on a digital watch. Since such big characters were not available commerically, custom segment structure was designed using leds and diffusing material. In all, we shipped about 20 displays to stores around Japan.


The display as installed in one of the brand shops in Tokyo. Led segments display a random animation sequence.
The final frame of animation lights up all segments.
Another view of the display in the same shop.
My boss at GK Tech, Ryuichi Iwamasa, at the back of a display.
The display driver PCBs.. each board contains a microprocessor, serial interface, and two display drivers connected via I2C bus.
Wiring at the back of the first display prototype.. it got tidier with each new version ;)
Last Updated:
2006.05.26