Hi Brian,
That 7000 display looks cool - wish I'd seen it sooner! I don't know how easy Noritake are to deal with, but I might try to purchase one for my next project - or a preamp rebuild!
The Noritake Itron part number for my display is CU20025ECPB-U1J
I've not been able to check the spec of the 7000 display, so I don't know how easy it is to use.... But, I would guess that if you are happy with the normal Hitachi-compatible displays, it shouldn't be to difficult. Let us know how you get on.
Jan,
The relays came from Farnell, and were quite cheap (about 1.3UKP in quantity). They use the standard "BT" footprint, so it would be easy enough to change them for better ones if necessary. If you like, I could look up the exact part numbers at the weekend - let me know...
The driver IC's are UCN5821A's - these are excellent IC's that I highly recommend... Shame that Allegro's samples programme is a bit poor - I had to send about 5 emails to get the 2 samples that I ended up using. Farnell sell them for around 5UKP each, but if you buy 10 that price comes down to around 2UKP
BeanZ,
Those switches are made by Unimec (I think) - they also came from Farnell. You buy the switch bodies and caps seperately (part numbers 311-3760 and 678-077). If you can, check the Farnell catalogue, because there is a huge range of switches and cap styles these days - you can also choose non-illuminated if you prefer...
MEnsing,
You're right for the VFD that I used, because that has an LCD-compatible interface. But, be careful - I don't think that they all use that interface. Indeed, being LCD-compatible is a big selling point of the VFD I bought.
That said, I'm sure that if you are able to write code for one sort of display, it's not too difficult to re-write it for another. Final thing

- I'm using my LCD-compatible VFD in 4-bit interface mode. I'm guess that other sorts of interfaces would not support this...?