32x32 LED matrix

[mrnick1234567]

Hey,

I am in love with this little matrix, but before I splash out $159 (or £100 for me) on one, I wanted to know what kind of refresh rate performance I would get with an Arduino w/ Mega 328? (I know it's a 'hack' running it with an Arduino, but I'm more comfortable with Arduino than Propeller or FPGA.) I'm not planning to run video or anything that demanding. More still images or the odd animation. Will it noticeably flicker?

Are there any videos out there of say the plasma demo for example?

Cheers
Nick

[adafruit]

We do 200Hz redraw. It looks really good, especially with a 1/16" white acrylic diffuser which will get rid of any flickering that is detectable . we dont have a tutorial for how to convert images or animations yet but there is an example sketch for loading an image from FLASH memory. the bottleneck is the 16MHz clock of an Arduino.

[adafruit]

tbitson, to the best of our knowledge they are two seperate panels. we suggest hooking it up according to our tutorial which will interleave the pixels for the best look

[pburgess]

It's possible, but not optimal. The pinout on these is a bit different than the 16x32 panel, and each section (upper or lower) only has 3 data input lines -- one each R,G,B -- vs. the 6-line input on the 16x32. Running the two in parallel rather than series is essential for good throughput, which in turn is essential for good PWM quality (since this isn't handled by the panel and must be brute-forced).

[pburgess]

Yes: all the data lines are in sync with the clock, and (the way the Arduino lib is written, at least) the clock timing is the same regardless whether there's 3 or 6 data lines in parallel; it can't go any faster even in the 3-bit case (which you'd have if connecting top & bottom in series). Ergo, 6 bits = 2X speed.

[mrnick1234567]

Hey thanks for the info. I had a look at the image to display code (the colorwheel stuff) and it looks pretty straight forward. I have some rough processing sketches that do .bmp -> binary so I could give those a whirl.

Cheers
NIck

[speekr]

A question that I have about this would be if it were possible to remove the matrix from the controller board. How difficult would it be or even possible? Id need.something like this to curve and possibly see through. If I could detach the matrix and extend the wiring while removing the covers from that leds themselves this would be exactly what Id use.
Any thoughts?

[pburgess]

The LEDs and drivers are on opposite faces of a single PCB. You might be able to remove the frame and the grid around the LEDs, but making something see-through from this wouldn't be possible.