Running message display project..(seek guidance)

Other Hardware LEDs and Multiplexing
1

Hi everyone...I'm planning to create a personal led matrix display for my small computer shop. I had a taste of creating 12x(8x8) led matrix and 74154 using picbasic a month ago. But it took too much of my time building it from scratch (hardware and software)...My Updated Led Matrix Message display - YouTube Although I did not get to do the animations yet...but very satisfying :D. For my next project I list some of the basic stuffs it should do.
Basic functionality and hardware requirements

  1. Can receive data from serial communication
  2. Display Date/time
  3. Temperature
  4. Basic animations (scroll left/right/ UP/Down and text on center display)
  5. Length of the matrix should be about 2meters long
    I decided to try Arduino, because of the libraries and many resources of information (to keep me going).
    Now my question is... I heard freetronics have DMD: Dot Matrix Display 32x16 Red and likewise sureelectronics with their P4 32X16 RG Bicolor LED Dot Matrix Unit. Can anyone advice me which one do you think I should consider purchasing in terms of the product/support/and examples available?
    I appreciate any input to all.

Thanks in advance,
mbox

2

Check out this (long) thread on the 32x16 display from Sure electronics:
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,50326.0.html
Lots of people are using it and you can find lots of examples around the net.

3

mbox:
Hi everyone...
Now my question is... I heard freetronics have DMD: Dot Matrix Display 32x16 Red Can anyone advice me which one do you think I should consider purchasing in terms of the product/support/and examples available?
I appreciate any input to all.

Thanks in advance,
mbox

There are many examples of using the dot-matrix displays in the freetronics forum, people have created larger displays using 6 units, played space invaders, made swimming pool timer displays and more. See http://forum.freetronics.com/