Using OpenSegment
Nate 
Hardware Info
OpenSegment can be powered from 4V (less bright) to 12V, but we recommend 5 to 6V. The default communication is 9600bps over serial.
Note: At any time the device can be reset to factory defaults (9600bps) by tying the RX pin to GND and powering up the device. See the Factory Reset section for more information.
The onboard regulator will regulate down to 5V. The regulator will protect against shorts, reverse power, over current, and overheating. Powering the board with more than 7V is ok, but the regulator will begin to dissipate the extra power by heating up and--depending on the brightness setting and input voltage--may cause the board to flicker.
The OpenSegment has an ATmega328 running a modified Optiboot bootloader. It’s basically a little Arduino running at 8MHz. You can reprogram the board using a standard serial connection. We always have an FTDI basic handy to make code changes, but you shouldn’t ever have to reprogram the display unless you really want to tweak the code.