RGB LED Tiles (for Digital Billboards/Video Screens)

BradsXmasLights

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Dec 23, 2010
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Let me draw your attention to this stuff that Ray sells:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/LED-display-screen-unit-board-control-card/701799_210028161.html

Also this article appears to be the same/similar stuff:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-diy-led-video-wall/overview



...Has anyone had any direct experience with this gear?


From what I can tell the system loosely works like this:
* LED tiles/panels get daisy chained together.
* Receiving card (board) drives the signaling to these tile 'strings'. And Hub board(s) fit in this scheme some how as an expansion point?. The actual main input signal comes in over a CAT5 cable from the sender card, so your content-server/PC can be remotely installed.
* Sending Card (board) takes a live DVI video signal and converts it in to their CAT5 cable format. Pretty sure this isn't actual ethernet as such - but their own signalling driven over twisted pair.
* Sending Card, despite being a PCI Card - actually will run outside of a PC providing it's given 5VDC to operate. Otherwise it only takes it power from the computer's PCI bus. Actual programming of the card is done via a USB connection, and video input is from the DVI input. So you would daisy chain the DVI (or HDMI) output from your PC and feed it in to this card.
* In the configuration software, you can define your LED matrix dimensions and the 'sender card' will then transcode an image of X/Y pixels from your DVI input to the LED panel. So if your matrix is 512x128 pixels, it can be set to capture/crop the top-left corner of your computer screen (DVI input). Then you design your content/signage/video to be scaled to this size on your screen to match


Very keen to hear from anyone who has played with some of this gear and/or can provide info on working equipment combinations/etc.
 

kel

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Not yet, but I'd love to get it working ... I was hoping that it worked with the h'ware we had already ...

After your post, now, I'm not sure ...
 

BradsXmasLights

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Nope, these are not native DMX it's a normal DVI video signal scan-converted accordingly. Which makes sense from the various "broken" screens I've seen with the windows desktop icons visible :D

But if your "signage" computer was to be running an app that received DMX and displayed it as a RGB matrix as a window on the PC screen - you could then effectively capture that video output and send it on to the LED display that well.

That is my plan at least - but I'm not sure what lag is like, etc.
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
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Maybe a program running on a Raspberry Pi could be used to convert / play animations and feed the DS card from it's HDMI output?
 

BradsXmasLights

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Dec 23, 2010
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David_AVD said:
Maybe a program running on a Raspberry Pi could be used to convert / play animations and feed the DS card from it's HDMI output?
That should work too. Just need the video file rendered so it's sized to fit the matrix-crop reigon, along with black padding, etc
 

DrNeutron

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Glace Bay
This is exactly what I am going to use for a Tune-to sign this year(P10 panels). You can't beat the prices and Ronp over at diychristmas.org has a controller and custom firmware made specifically for matrix panels.
Here are the panels he suggests: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-P10-Indoor-SMD-3in1-Full-Color-Led-Display-Module-1-8-scan-320-160mm/1791940107.html Ray's look to be the same, but I am going with what is known to work according to Ron (may try one from ray though, will report back when I get everything).
His controllers are on his website: http://ronsholidaylights.com/
He has a vendor area on diychristmas.org : http://diychristmas.org/vb1/forumdisplay.php?94-Ron-s-Holiday-Lights
I just ordered the 16 universe controller and plan on a matrix of P10 panels, either 2 X 3 or 2 X 4.
 
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