Winter time can be rough in the city. The sky is gray. The weather is unpredictable. So slough off those seasonal blues with some Times Square razzle dazzle from this sweet, ultra-high-density 64×64 RGB LED Matrix. These panels are typically used to make video walls. Here in New York we see them on the sides of buses and on top of taxi cabs displaying animations or video advertisements. We thought they looked really cool, so we picked up a few boxes of them from a factory. They have 4,096 bright RGB LEDs arranged in a 64×64 grid at a 2.5mm pitch.
WARNING! These 64-pixel tall matrices use a non-standard 5-address multiplexing system! WARNING!
Many add-ons or drivers use only a 4-address (ABCD) setup. Right now the only board we have that can use these big matrices is our RGB Matrix Bonnet for Raspberry Pi, and you’ll need to connect a solder jumper. Other libraries such as our Arduino library, or our HDMI driver boards don’t support 5-address multiplexing!
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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.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
