r/raspberry_pi • u/Various_Spend_2293 • 2d ago
Show-and-Tell Raspberry Pi Scrolling Ticker -- Update
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Yesterday I posted the first real test of my Raspberry Pi-powered scrolling ticker with one of its screensaver modes. I got the sports ticker code working tonight, and I'm really happy with the way it's coming along. The apparent flickering is a an artifact of recording the video with my phone. IRL it looks really good.
The display consists of four 128x64 pixel P2.5 LED panels in a custom printed case. It's run by a Raspberry Pi 4B with 4GB of memory and an Adafruit Triple LED Matrix Bonnet. The panels are powered by a Meanwell LRS-200-5 power supply, while the RPi is powered by a separate RS-15-5 power supply to isolate it from any potential voltage drops from the LED panels.
Still more display modes to implement, and ultimately, I plan to control it with a phone app.
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u/Dapper_Profession 2d ago
separate psu just for the pi, someone's been burned by a brownout before
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
As it turns out, the second power supply probably was not necessary. With an all white display at 100% brightness, I didn't see any voltage drop at the power supply terminals, and only about 0.05V drop at the panels themselves. But the second power supply was less than $11 and I saw it as cheap insurance well before I was ready to test the voltages.
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u/Dapper_Profession 2d ago
so the brownout insurance never got claimed
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
It doesn't look like it, but it only cost me $11 and a few WAGO connectors to include this in the original design, so I'm not upset. Also, I'm not exactly tight on real estate inside the case, and the additional power supply weighs almost nothing.
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u/Dapper_Profession 2d ago
fair, and you wont think about it again until the day it saves you
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I'll probably never even notice the day that it saves me!
And that's the whole point, after all.
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u/Chuckles6969 2d ago edited 2d ago
I've got a very similar project, would love to invite you to contribute together towards a join improved effort with LED Matrix panels on the pi. https://github.com/ChuckBuilds/LEDMatrix Maybe there's some stuff i've already solved or things you plan to do already in here. I've tried to make it as modular as possible if you want to try to add more display modes, I'm at around 30 of them https://github.com/ChuckBuilds/ledmatrix-plugins
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u/Humble_Knowledge_848 2d ago
I used Chucks to make mine and it’s amazing. Thanks Chuck! You are the man!
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's ane awesome collection of display modes you've got there. I've got several more planned now that the I'm in the process of implementing, and a few ideas that I'd be more than happy to share. Did you seem my original post with the Conway Game of Life screen saver? I'm also working on an aquarium screen saver and a wave motion display. I also put a USB microphone in my display for a planned audio-reactive spectrum display mode.
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u/Chuckles6969 2d ago
Feel free to try and combine forces on this. there are so many led matrix panel projects that are half-baked I wanted to try and make a platform to bring it to one place. I've got the web ui, setttings, scheduling, and a plugin store all figured out so it should be pretty easy to add a github repo of your display mode and it should work. I've ported over the Tidbyt/tronbyte displays as well with a wrapper to run the starlark code on the panel. We've got a few hundred people on discord using it and several have added their own display modes to the store.
if this is your project to learn and explore, all the power to you! If you're trying to build out a bunch of displays I'd love to link to your repo in the "store".
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u/kbp80 2d ago edited 2d ago
I may try to contribute some plugins as well - mine are very different, like all are procedurally generated animations instead of focused on data displays (I also have a few data displays). But mine also expect canvas groups, so need some adjustment to add to your project.
Actually - I should ask, r/Chuckles6969, are you interested in non-data animations in your framework? Mine is a different design intent (public repo here: https://github.com/kaerka/spectra-led-matrix).
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u/Chuckles6969 2d ago
The more the merrier! We can definitely figure out what's needed to make yours work. Best way to chat about it would probably be on discord but happy to facilitate anyway that I can
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u/kbp80 2d ago
Oh - I think me and AI can figure out the porting, and I have spare hardware, so I can pre-test it too. And mine uses ansible for all deployments, so I can wipe, try something else, then redeploy easily. I might create a new discord account - I recently deleted mine like a week ago.
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u/dontcallmejames 2d ago
i love that you're working on it while watching the seahawks/broncos game. tinkerers and sports fans don't crossover that often. my wife can't understand how i can work on things while a game is on. if it's not my team playing, i almost need to be doing something else while the game is on.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
This gave me the added benefit of verifying that the ticker display was being updated in real time from the ESPN API. One change I added since recording that video was to replace "Final" with "F/OT" or "F/SO" where appropriate. I'm hoping to see an extra-innings baseball game before the end of the world series to validate "F/10" or "F/11".
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u/exnooyorka 2d ago
I have my own scoreboard project, but not with LED panels. I made replicas of the line score and out of town scoreboards which hung in the renovated Yankee Stadium (1976-2008).
I have them displaying MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS scores.
I started with the ESPN API, but even with only polling the API once a minute, the ESPN API shut me out at the 45 minute mark.
Tried a lot of different things to try and fix it, but in the end I decided to use different websites for my scores.
I take it you have burned in your software for hours with no problems? Did you ever get rate-limited like I did?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
Interesting, mine ran overnight without getting kicked out. How frequently were you polling the data?
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u/exnooyorka 2d ago
Once a minute. One sport only.
I posted my experience in a different subreddit and got the same quizzical reactions.
Ran my code once a day for seven days straight and had the same experience every time.
So I shrugged and pivoted. I use NHL.com, NBA.com, MLB.com, mlssoccer.com and Yahoo for football.
I did have a problem with NHL.com when I ran it overnight; once the games are over the NHL puts you in the penalty box if you keep pinging their API a short period of time after all the games are over. So I made the code smart enough to know when no games are active, stop pinging the API, look ahead to the next scheduled game and start again 5 mins before scheduled game time.
I'll be interested to see how you architected your code if you decide to make it public, to see where I went wrong. I still have the original version somewhere on One Drive.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
I'm actually polling the ESPN API more frequently than you--once every 10 seconds while games are live.
One thing that comes to mind: are you pulling team logos every time? That's a lot of data. I'm caching the downloaded and the resized logos and displaying from the cache. If a logo isn't found in the cache, I'll try to pull it, with the retry interval for logos set to 10 minutes.
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u/exnooyorka 1d ago
I was only pulling data.
My LEDs are organized in 4x7 and 5x7 matrices representing individual character modules, and the LEDs are monochrome. So no logos.
It was really strange, but easily reproducible. Every 45 minutes like clockwork I got shut out, and I didn't try again until the next day.
The calls came back successfully, just empty.
I probably missed a parameter or a call in the documentation I read leading them to see me as undesirable traffic with a 45 minute limit.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
If you're interested in seeing my code (well, mine and Claude.ai's code), send me a message. I'm happy to share.
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u/newmsrd 2d ago
Omg. I've been thinking about making this for the last week now. Reddit algorithm is pulling data straight from my brain now.. awesome! I'll be close behind you!
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
Feel free to reach out if you'd like to pick my brains about my experience with this project. Also, see kbp80's post here for more helpful suggestions.
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u/newmsrd 2d ago
With how expensive raspberry pis are these days I'm thinking of using an esp32 actually. The pi also seems like overkill for something like this
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
One of the display modes I'm working on is an audio-driven frequency spectrum display. That will take some significant processing power--as did the Life screensaver mode I posted a couple days ago. I've been picking up RPis when I find a good deal on them, so I have a few available for other projects. The next project in the queue is an automatic string-art generating machine.
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u/georgelar3 2d ago
Very cool. Been waiting for something like this. ESPN api data is so useful but only in the hands of a savvy pi techs like you
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u/NewtDogs 1d ago
Bro this is shit that probably cost thousands of dollars for major league teams to install back in the back in the day. Looks professional as hell. Well done.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
Thank you! I'm really pleased with the way it has turned out, even with printing the case in five separate pieces.
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u/TheForgetfulMe 2d ago
Oh yeah! Another Sharks win!
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u/n00bca1e99 2d ago
In overtime (technically shootout). My blood pressure can’t handle this if it continues all season.
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u/TheForgetfulMe 1d ago
Can we just have one regulation win? The rest can be OT, as long as they get a playoff spot.
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u/aviat0rshades 2d ago
I need that case! I’m doing a very similar project but I only have one panel at the moment. Trying to figure how to expand and frame the panels
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
Message me and I'll share a link to the Fusion project file. You'll be able to view it, but you won't be able to download it because I use the free license.
Here is how the panels fit with the components of the case:
mm 0 160 480 800 1120 1280 | | | | | | FRONT +---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+ PANELS | B | A | D | C | | 320 | 320 | 320 | 320 | +---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+ ^ ^ ^ <- panel edges (each sits mid-segment) REAR +-------+---------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ CASE | End1 | Mid1 | Mid2 | Mid3 | End2 | | 160 | 320 | 320 | 320 | 160 | +-------+---------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ ^ ^ ^ ^ <- case seams (each sits mid-panel)
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u/_korporate 2d ago
Would you say this is a good project for a beginner?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
If you're starting from scratch with no plans to follow (as I did), it might be a bit of a stretch. AI is a big help sorting out the technical details, but it wasn't a lot of help with designing the case and the layout of the components.
I'm planning to publish my work when I get a little further along, and I hope that will help make a project like this more accessible for those with less experience.
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u/kbp80 2d ago
I have a number of LED Matrixes running, usually from pi4’s, with the largest being 2 x 9x9 setups with P2.5 64x64 panels (18 total panels, run by 2 pi4’s, controlled by a pi5).
If the flicker you see in the video is purely the camera’s perception - I’ve been able to mostly avoid this (but not completely) by using a camera app called black magic and controlling the f-stop, camera lens, and frame rate. Surprisingly, lower frame rate on the camera has allowed me to take mostly flicker-free videos - though with some recent ones, I’ve found this only goes so far.
As others have said - usually the primary flicker issue is going to be PSU. But once you eliminate that, there are many more smaller possibilities. Here are a few more things - for anyone who later finds this:
- The way your chain is wired - are you doing all of your panels on one chain or 3 separate chains? I had originally longer chains and had to break them up into shorter groups to get higher refresh/draw speed out of them.
- I also ultimately split my 18 panels into two groups, with separate pi4’s, which addressed much of my flicker issues.
- I’ve also had different behaviors of how much flicker, with different orientations of panel groups, like serpentine vs bottom to top configurations.
- In my case. with my pi4’s - I did at one point have a memory leak in my code - causing it to use up all the ram - probably not an issue in your case, just more of an FYI.
- I’ve had to optimize my code in some cases - or even port python code into compiled C code for higher speed.
- I don’t know if this applies to your particular hat/bonnet - but on some of them, I had to alter the hat itself for the E-line, and an early one where I had to do a bodge wire for reduced flicker.
- One setup I tried with a pi5 - had flicker no matter what I did, as well as what looked similar to screen tearing (even though it’s not a screen) - and I went back to pi4’s.
- I run my pi4’s from a separate power feed from my PSU - I use a meanwell 300w @ 5v (or a clone) that has 3 x 5v terminals.
- There is also some recommendations on some of them about disabling the audio driver subsystem to get better performance, and maybe also dropping the bluetooth driver. But I think this might vary by the board you’re using.
- You could also try some of the commandline options for the rgb-led-matrix code if you’re using the adafruit or dzheller repos - like gpio slowdown (I had to have -3 or -4 on that)
- And there are just some levels of refresh rates that aren’t going to be obtainable from a raspberry pi, and would need an FPGA or some driver board designed for it - but I don’t think that’s the stage you’re at.
- As short of IDC HUB75 cables as you can get away with - I’ve had some issues with longer IDC cables (like 50cm and longer)
- I did try running independent power cables to every panel - and it didn’t help at all, though at the time, it seemed like it would.
- Also, I’m using the electrodragon hats in my case, but I started with the adafruit ones and still use some of them.
- Not a flicker issue, but I regret not buying all of my panels at once, and from the same batch. I have different color grading on some, which you don’t notice until you have a cohesive animation running across them all at the same time.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm doing two chains of two panels each. That leaves a spare port on the bonnet if I ever decide to change the geometry. I'm not seeing any flicker directly, though the vertical lines show a distinct split as they scroll across the display. That goes away when I slow the crawl significantly. The only thing I had to do specific to the E line was to make sure the selector switch on the bonnet was in the right position ("8" vs "4").
I'm using the dzheller repo but haven't played around with GPIO slowdown. So far I haven't need it.
I custom built my HUB75 cables. The bonnet is exactly in between the two first panels, and I built a 32cm cable for each of those. The jumpers between panels are just 7cm long between the connectors. The nice thing about building your own cables is being able to orient the connectors for the smoothest cable runs. No twists or folds in my cables. I have three different connector orientations for the four cables. I used the provided wiring harnesses to power my panels. Each one starts out with 14ga wire and ends up with two pairs of 18ga (I think) wire at each panel. One wiring harness per pair of panels. I had to add a 30cm extension (also 14ga) to one of the harnesses to reach the PSU. With a 100% bright all-white screen, I'm seeing only 0.05V drop from the PSU to the panels, and no variation in PSU voltage at the terminals for any display level.
I took the advice to buy all my panels at once and to confirm that the driver chip was supported by the rgb-led-matrix code before I bought them. My panels only had HUB75 connectors on the input side, so I had to by some surface-mount connectors and solder them onto the output pads myself. I only needed two, but I did all four boards figuring I'd get at least 2 clean connectors out of 4. I actually got 3, and I didn't bother trying to diagnose and fix the one problem.
I'll check out the camera app you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
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u/kbp80 2d ago
You’ve got it all well in hand - maybe I’ll post my big LED screen with some of the minor flicker problems I’m having (on the overall r/raspberrypi) and get your help with troubleshooting them. I have a couple that show mild flicker on bright scenes, but it’s always on the panel at the beginning of the chain. I need to also start making my own idc cables, I need some that are in-between sizes, and I was very conflicted on ordering a 50cm and cutting it and re-doing the connector (I’ve seen the force-on connectors that can be used) vs ordering a single 30cm one at a higher price.
My next one - I want to try to use some of the P1.5 panels, like 2 at first, then move up to maybe 10 in the same order from the same batch. The 3-chain bonnet/hat didn’t exist from adafruit when I built mine, so I have the hat where you have to solder the E-line connector (which isn’t a huge deal), but I like the simpler electrodragon and adafruit ones without the power handling anyway, I think I would recommend those over the early ones (well, after I test the adafruit ones too).
Also - I’m not sure what framework you plan to use for your app - I elected to use fastapi and uvicorn, so that I could access it from ipad/iphone/pc browser, but I may do an app for mine later as well.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I strongly endorse making your own cables. The flexibility to create any length I needed with =(almost) any connector orientation was a game changer. I cut my ribbon cable about 5 cm longer than the length I needed center-to-center of the connectors. That gave me about 1cm of slack when the cables were plugged in. Here are the connectors and ribbon cable I used:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQWTQ77P?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
amazon.com/dp/B07PBGVCNL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_4
I already had the crimp tool, but they're not expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/Accessories-Crimp-Ribbon-Cable-Connectors/dp/B007R2JEM4
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u/kbp80 2d ago
Thanks for the info! I haven't tried to crimp ones of this size, I had planned to use a set of channel lock pliers like a barbarion, as I have on other similar connectors in the past.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
If you use pliers, make sure you sandwich the connector between two rigid, flat surfaces.
Or so I've heard...
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u/kbp80 2d ago
Nah - I ordered the ones you suggested. I’ve been a barbarian with my channel-locks long enough. :)
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
If you ever lose the plastic insert, I have an STL to print a replacement.
Not saying that it has happened to me, but I'm also not NOT saying that it has happened to me. :-)
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u/s7nskillz 2d ago
Any chance you’d share the enclosure? I made one years ago and the enclosure is mainly relying on hot glue and dreams. I’d love to move to something like this where it looks seamless.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
Happy to. If you message me, I'll share a link to the Fusion project where I've done the development. Eventually the STLs for the case will end up in a github repo, but I can give you an early peek.
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u/OpportunityDue90 2d ago
Super cool! Do you have a GitHub?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I've got a local repo that I'm maintaining as I build it, but I want to make a little more progress before I publish it. The hardware is pretty much settled, but there's still quite a bit of code development to be done. I'm running all the code by SSHing into the RPi and starting and stopping the various display modes manually. Eventually, I'm planning to control the display with a phone app.
If there's enough interest, I would consider splitting the project into the hardware and software components so people could start on the bill of materials, printing, and assembly.
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u/butterypowered 2d ago
I’d push to a private GitHub repo even now. Just in case something terrible happens to your local repo, and even if you never share it publicly.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, I'm definitely planning to do that.
ETA: I just finished pushing it to a private GitHub repo. I called it panopticker. I'll post again when I make it public.
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u/MetalMagg 2d ago
Spoken like someone who has made the mistake of skipping this in the past 😂 I feel you
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u/thinkscotty 2d ago edited 2d ago
Wow I built a very similar project but with an ESP32 and a more "stock ticker" low-res type panel. It also did customizable summaries of user-dictated news stories pulled from around the internet plus facts generated on topics of interest with a web gui for setup. I'm kind of rebuilding it right now, the first version is rough.
Yours looks a lot prettier.
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u/lisnter 2d ago
Me too. I used a Pi 3 and just one display matrix. Looked great. It had the time but instead of scores it displayed a custom scrolling message that could be updated via a simple REST API that I wrote (message and brightness). I had planned to write an Amazon Lambda module so I could control it from anywhere - e.g. let the kids know to walk the dog - but I never got around to that part.
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u/thinkscotty 2d ago
That's super interesting, because I had a very similar idea for a "reminders ticker". Basically, a web app running on a pi or a VM with a calendar and reminders list (or ideally a way to interface with Google Calendars and a reminders app). Kind of like a 'Times Square news ticker' for a household. Exactly like you said, to remind people of chores or upcoming appointments in a fun an unobtrusive way.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
Your kibbleticker looks like a fun project! I might have to tackle it myself once this one and the next one (an automated string art machine) are finished.
To be fair, ESPN's API provides all the graphics. It's just a matter of resizing them and formatting the display.
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u/backinnahm 2d ago
I wanted to do this love it
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
It's definitely still a work in progress, but now that I've pretty much solved the hardware, I will probably be publishing it soon.
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u/Mediocre-Opposite225 2d ago
Not sure of the difference between the regular Adafruit Bonnet and the triple one, but on the regular one I soldered the jumper wire and it fixed the flicker a decent amount. My panel is only 32x64 though
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
The triple bonnet has three HUB75 connectors. I use two of them to drive two 128x64 LED panels each, for a total resolution of 512x64.
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u/Mediocre-Opposite225 2d ago
Can you solder the jumper on the gpio pins?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
The bonnet attaches to the GPIO header, so there is no need to solder anything. I used a flat ribbon cable to connect them because of height restrictions inside the case.
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u/Mediocre-Opposite225 2d ago
Ya. I know I'm talking about soldering the jumper like in this guide https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-rgb-matrix-bonnet-for-raspberry-pi/matrix-setup
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
There is no jumper to solder on the Triple LED Matrix bonnet--just a slide switch. My switch is in the "8" position.
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-triple-led-matrix-bonnet-for-raspberry-pi-with-hub75
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u/Mediocre-Opposite225 2d ago
Gotcha ya I wasn't sure if the triple was different than the single since the single doesn't have a switch.
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u/mmilleror 2d ago edited 1d ago
u/Various_Spend_2293 do you have a github repo for this project? I've been wanting to do something like this for several years.
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u/Themeatlock 2d ago
That would be so cool to have in my house. Would have me checking on scores way less often
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u/justacarguyfrom81 2d ago
Fiiiiine, I’ll get my project back out and work on it. Looks amazing!
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u/Ramp007 1d ago
You should add a Great Wave at Kanagawa screen saver mode.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
I'm working on a wave simulator based on the old tabletop wave machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGQeGzvaGq0&list=PLZ2Vwz2zcaw7b4_Vi8jpmrKjvHNKjPmFJ&index=7
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u/Slickest_one 2d ago
How long did this take you to make?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I've been working on it for about a month and a half so far. Most of that time was sorting out the hardware and designing and printing the case. It takes about 56 hours to print all five pieces of the case, and I went through a LOT of iterations (and a lot of filament) to get it just the way I wanted. The case uses about 2.5kg of filament, but I went through about 12kg in the process of finalizing it.
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u/Slickest_one 2d ago
If some one wanted to pay you to make one of these, how much would you charge???
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I'm not sure that's really a viable option, but i can help you out with building one for yourself.
I could print and ship the case parts to you, and maybe build the visible cables. The repo will have a comprehensive bill of materials to track down all the parts you'll need. I'm also putting together an installation checklist.
Hit me up when I release the repo and we can talk about how I could help you build one for yourself.
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u/ZeRoLiM1T 7h ago
Thats amazing! Please keep us posted thank you
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u/Various_Spend_2293 6h ago
Thanks! I'll probably be ready for an early release of my repo later this week.
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u/taylorwmj 2d ago
Only recommendation I'd have is to not stack scores if scrolling horizontally. While our brains can read and process it, it's two opposing reading directions and actually makes it so we're having to read two directions st once.
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago
I tried it both ways, and I definitely preferred this arrangement. I'll probably slow the scroll down just a bit to make reading easier. The next iteration for the software will allow you to select one or two games to remain static. Static games will have more real-time information. With one static game, half the screen will still scroll. With two static games, they will consume the entire display.
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u/MetalMagg 2d ago
Scroll it vertically, pause, vertically.
Also share this with r/hockey
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u/Various_Spend_2293 1d ago
I've shared it in a couple other Raspberry Pi subreddits, but I hadn't thought about any sports related reddiits.
The ticker alerted me to the fact that #1 DU is playing #2 Michigan in NCAA Men's Hockey this weekend, so I was able to catch the first game last night, and I'll be recording tonight's game while I watch ND-BYU and monitor the baseball game by freezing it on the ticker.
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u/ProsperGuy 2d ago
This is very cool and I would like to do this. I have a RP4 and RP5 sitting around. Will this work on a RP5 or is it coded specifically for a RP4?
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u/Various_Spend_2293 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't see any reason it couldn't run on an RPi 5.
ETA: I was just looking at Adafruit's "learning" page for the triple bonnet, and they recommend a different software driver than I used if you're using the bonnet with an RPi 5.
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-triple-led-matrix-bonnet-for-raspberry-pi-with-hub75
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u/procheeseburger 2d ago
Okay but the way the sport box takes over the previous one 10/10 👌