Matrix Digital Rain Wall Art

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CajuCLC
 
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Matrix Digital Rain Wall Art

Post by CajuCLC »

Not sure this is the place to ask, but Contact Us page pointed me here.
I am planning to build a wall art that is 4x2 feet (~ 91.44 x 60.96 cm) and I would like to use LEDs.

At first I was going to have a company print the binary code on an acrylic panel, frame and add some LED strips/lights to do the effect. But I want something I can control and actually change if I want to.
Then I thought about just going and finding a place I can get a LCD/OLED/etc screen, Pi or Arduino, plug the HDMI and call it a day.

But I saw the Matrix 64x64 and also the Neopixels and I think it would look way cooler using them. I am new to this, so could Adafruit support point me to all products I would need to acquire to get this done? I also understand I might have to build something, I can worry about coding after I get the hardware. :)

EDIT: As I mentioned I will frame it, but whatever control the lights MUST have wifi connection and be able to run some kind of web app to receive API calls. For example I have IFTTT to turn off all office lights when I turn off one. That way that light would also turn off or I could turn on with an API call.

Thanks!!!

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Matrix Digital Rain Wall Art

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

A 4' x 2' array is large enough to need a well-engineered power system, and that isn't the kind of thing you can build from online advice. Your best bet will be to get help from a local electrician or a sign company that does LED billboards.

A Raspberry Pi can manage the data to control the matrices, and the more recent ones have Wifi built in. I'd suggest using a Pi3 or Pi4 for an array that size.

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CajuCLC
 
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Re: Matrix Digital Rain Wall Art

Post by CajuCLC »

adafruit_support_mike wrote:A 4' x 2' array is large enough to need a well-engineered power system, and that isn't the kind of thing you can build from online advice. Your best bet will be to get help from a local electrician or a sign company that does LED billboards.

A Raspberry Pi can manage the data to control the matrices, and the more recent ones have Wifi built in. I'd suggest using a Pi3 or Pi4 for an array that size.

Thanks for the reply. So I can't put together some of the 64x64 Matrix displays you guys sell until I get to the size I need?
I can deal with the power later, I would like to know if it's possible to use the displays available. Even if I do a 1' x 1', what would I need?

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Matrix Digital Rain Wall Art

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

The LED matrices we carry are the same ones used to make LED billboards, so you can build an array of almost any size. Thing is, those billboards are run by specialized devices called FPGAs that do parallel number crunching and have hundreds of IO pins. We used to carry that kind of system, but it was pricey and fairly complex:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1453

Most people use a Raspberry Pi and one of our Matrix Hats instead:

https://www.adafruit.com/category/176
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2345

The number of matrices you'd need for a 4' x 2' array would push the limits of that kind of system though.

What you want to do is complex enough that there's no simple "buy these parts and plug them together this way" solution.

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