“While considerably less expensive than the Cosmic Unicorn, this is a ‘dumb’
panel with no memory nor self-drawing capability, so you’ll need extra hardware to drive it, such as Adafruit’s RGB Matrix Bonnet for Raspberry Pi, or a suitable microcontroller such as the RP2040-based Interstate 75. The LED matrix panel is available in various resolutions, up to 64×64, and pitch measurements between the pixels – between 2.5mm and 6mm.
These HUB75 standard panels – many others are available from various suppliers – are the sort that can be chained together to make a larger ‘video wall’, provided you have enough processing power and RAM. Adafruit’s guide (hsmag.cc/ledmatrixguide) explains the basics of how they work. Note that
there’s no PWM control to vary the LEDs’ brightness, so you need to continually redraw the whole matrix at high speeds, requiring a fast controller (50Hz or more) for the best results. Typically, you’ll also need to supply 5V power separately to the panel.”
They give the RGB LED Matrix Panel an 8/10, saying “Good value and chainable, but
requires extra hardware to drive it.”
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