You can now create a dazzling display with your Raspberry Pi Model A+/B+ with the Adafruit RGB Matrix HAT. This HAT plugs into your Pi and makes it super easy to control RGB matrices such as those we stock in the shop and create a colorful scrolling display or mini LED wall with ease.
This HAT is our finest to date, full of some really great circuitry. Let me break it down for you:
Simple design – plug in power, plug in IDC cable, runs our Python code!
Power protection circuitry – you can plug a 5V 4A wall adapter into the HAT and it will automatically protect against negative, over or under-voltages! Yay for no accidental destruction of your setup.
Onboard level shifters to convert the RasPi’s 3.3V to 5.0V logic for clean and glitch free matrix driving
DS1307 Real Time Clock can keep track of time for the Pi even when it is rebooted or powered down, to make for really nice time displays
Works with any of our 16×32, 32×32 or 32×64 RGB LED Matrices with HUB75 connections. You can even chain multiple matrices together for a longer display, you can chain as many as you like but the bigger the display the harder it is on the Pi so keep that in mind! We don’t recommend more than 32×128 pixel setups
Please note: this HAT is only for use with HUB75 type RGB Matrices. Not for use with NeoPixel, DotStar, or other ‘addressable’ LEDs.
A 5V power supply is also required, not included, for power the matrix itself, the Pi cannot do it, to calculate the power, multiply the width of all the chained matrix by 0.06 : A 32 pixel wide matrix needs 32*0.06 = 3.85A so pick up a 5V 4A power supply.
Some light soldering is required to attach the headers to your Pi. A soldering iron and solder are required, but it’s not a complex soldering job and most beginners can do it in about 15 minutes.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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