[HELP] How to drive 100 LED Matrix ???

Hi all, please help, I have googling hard enough but still cant find any clue. :blush:

I need to learn how to drive 100 LED Matrix to form scrolling big display with minimum wiring and low cost as possible.

I had seen people use 1 board to drive multiple LED Matrix (about 10-20 LED Matrix) but I don't know what and where to get that board.

Is there any elegant solution for this ? or anyone can suggest what board it is and where to buy it ?

Many thanks in advance :slight_smile:

You mean something like this, from sureelectronics.com for example?
Or do you want to make your own?

Yeah, I want to make my own display.

Its quite same like your picture, but bigger, lets say : 4 rows of 25 LED Matrix or even more.
And I want to be able to draw anything on that.

Is there any module that can drive bulk array of LED ? where can I buy that ?
Or any other advice ?

Please guide me :slight_smile:

Okay, to make your own you will need to design a shift register array to pass the LED on/off data down the line.
What you could do is wire up 8 five x seven LED matrixes and drive them with 2 MAX6953 chips (each controls for 5x7 displays).
Matrixes are available here, make sure you find common Cathode parts to go with the MAX6953 from maxim-ic.com

CrossRoads:
..(each controls for 5x7 displays)..

um..ic..
I had successfully drive 2 LED Matrix together with 2 Maxim IC + 1 Arduino before.
but is that means with 4x25 LED Matrix, I need 100 Maxim IC ?

I'm kinda confuse about the wiring if its involve many LED Matrix. How to integrate them all ?
Wish there's a comprehensive reading or guide. :disappointed_relieved:

Read the max6953 data sheet to start with, very helpful.
Each part can drive four 5x7 LED matrixes (with 35 LEDs per matrix). The matrixes are sort of wired in parallel, not nearly as bad at it seems.
So you mount 8 of the 5x7s in a line, you get 7 high x 40 long display, double that for 7 high x 80 long.

Matrixes are like these - or do a LOT of wiring by hand!
http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=16794+OP
Look up the Liteon datasheet (mpja link seems to be bad), browse some of the other parts, look up the max6953 at maxim-ic.com.
Connections are very straightforward, I've had 4 and the driver chip working on a breadboard no problem, with serial data from an arduino just displaying digits via I2C (SCL & SDA) for this part.

Just make sure you get a matrix that matches your driver.

Hmm, thanks for the information :wink:

I also found some project similar with what I want. Simple wiring, I love it.

and here's the behind

It seems they used a special ready made 64x32 LED (which build from 4x8 of 8x8 LED Matrix) from sureelectronics.com, which also comes with those big green pcb (I believe this is the driver for LED Matrix) sticking behind of each LED Matrix.

And that board behind I guess is a parallax micro-controller board.

So basically what I'm looking for is that big green PCB driver to avoid me from confusion and trouble in wiring lots of LED Matrix rather than I build it from scratch.

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?105312-SX-controlled-6432-Dot-Matrix-Bi-Tri-Color-LED-Display

So you want to connect up 4 of these 32x16 displays then to get 64x32 - that's the closest thing they offer on the website currenty
http://www.sureelectronics.net/goods.php?id=1122, $27 each = $108 + shipping
Then you're going to need some solid programming behind it to make it display stuff.

Or, you can get a refurbished netbook for $220
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6252617&CatId=4236
and a big display for $80
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=113888&sku=H94-1966&cm_re=Homepage-_-Spot%2003-_-CatId_12_H94-1966

and come up with the fanciest welcome message you can come up with using a powerpoint sllide show or something ...

Great, you share nice information ! Really appreciate that :slight_smile:

In my previous post, I stated that the green PCB is the driver, I was wrong. It just the wiring between LED Matrix with the ICs behind it. They provide another driver board to test the LED and little software to write some text, but not really programmable.

Well, programming is not issue for me, I'm a programmer :slight_smile:
Too bad that I'm not an electrician :frowning:

um, I think I'm gonna try and order :

Four(4) of 8x32 LED Board; They said that only max of 4 LED Board can be cascade :frowning:
Test Driver Board

Then play with it and hook up with my arduino. I might need your guide later :slight_smile: