pylon:
Provide a link to the datasheet of the strip you're planning to use!
This is for the transistor I have right now (TIP31): https://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/datasheets/TIP31.pdf
pylon:
A transistor is probably not the best choice here, a MOSFET might be the better match.
Can you elaborate on that? I've never used a MOSFET, how do they work? Are there many MOSFETs available? How do I choose which is best?
pylon:
The bigger problem usually is the 5V power supply. You cannot have 2000 pixels in row, after 100-200 of them you won't have enough power to light the LEDs. You have to make multiple strips because of the power anyway so you can have one pin per strip to control it. The speed on the data line depends on the strips used (once again, why don't you provide links to the datasheet?) but even the faster versions cannot have more than about 400 Pixels to get an update rate of 50Hz. As you didn't provide information about what you think is a lag, we cannot go into more detail.
I didn't buy the LED strips for the panel yet. I'm in the research phase.
As you stated I can't have the whole strip powered by one single power source. I need one at every ~200 LEDs.
In this video build your own flexible LED Display at 3m39s it shows that one power supply not strong enough to power everything. I'm ok with having a couple of power sources along the panel
What it didn't see is how many data sources were used to control the strip. Because the wiring I assume it is just one data line shared with all screen lines and yet it can play a youtube video fine (no visible lag)
This is what I'm asking, how big can we make the panel before it starts to show visible lag. How far can one data line reach before a section starts to lag behind and make the video deform?