Thanks Wagner, but now the project has grown as I talked it over with my wife. Yes, it's a hobby project looking for an easy way to present a christmas greeting (of course you have to do it electronically) to the neighbors as they drive by. Now it really should be alpha-numeric. That multiplys the complexity of this a whole bunch and I was struggling before. Wagner Lipnharski To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: High Current Serial Sent by: pic Display Driver microcontrolle r discussion list 11/12/99 10:52 AM Please respond to pic microcontrolle r discussion list Hello Jack, along with other several possible solutions, 1) take a look at: http://www.marktechopto.com/tb62709f.htm it is a serial input (2+1 lines), decode, auto multiplex, common anode LED 7 seg, that can scan and drive up to 4 displays. As the segment is active low drive, and the digit selection is high drive, you could use 8 PNP or P Channel FETS for the segments and 4 NPN or N channel FET for the digit selection, to drive your lamps. It has internal character generation and they can be cascaded. 2) If your PIC has plenty of time, do the char generation and multiplexing scan by yourself. Incandescent lamps have a nice persistence for scanning. Try to use low voltage lamps. As it will be multiplexed, probably you will want to use 12V lamps on 16, 18, 24 or even 30Vdc (high peak pulses). 12V lamps requires higher current than a power equivalent 110Vac lamps, so the filament is ticker, more mechanical resistant and it is less sensible to multiplexing eye effect (as the filament is ticker, it absorbs more heat, taking longer to cool down). If you apply power in 10Hz square wave to a regular 110Vac 40W lamp, you probably will see some flickering, at the 12Vdc 40W lamp it is not easily notice... Wagner Lipnharski UST Research Inc. - Orlando, Florida ------------------------------------------------------- Free Classifieds? http://www.ustr.net/classifieds.shtml