The Maxim part you mentioned is for VFD's, and it looks like it can run as low as 8V. If you use it to drive the anode of your LEDs, you run the risk of exposing the logic driving the cathodes (segments) to roughly 6 volts (the LED has about 2V of forward bias).
If the Arduino has 5V-tolerant I/O pins, you will have problems because there will be a current path through the LED to the 5V supply even if your LED is off; this is the parasitic-diode path in the IC that forms part of the ESD protection network for pins. Before going any further, do you have a datasheet for the LEDs ? You need to know how much current is required when running multiplexed in order to select the correct driver IC. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/9d125a65-17d8-4ca0-840c-0c22ddc04e05%40googlegroups.com.
