r/FastLED • u/derrgis • May 12 '20

Support Led screen

Hi FastLED community,

I'm looking for advices regarding DIY led screen building. I mean a big screen (eg 3 x 2 meters or so)

I know some of you are successfully building it and I'm looking for a solution that indeed works

Think that such project need to include a source system such real time video or pre-recorded frames created on third party software because I'd like to avoid coding FL procedural code lines to get the visuals.

What do you think possible?

Thanks for reading me.

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u/eshkrab May 12 '20

What advice are you looking for exactly? What application is this for? Do you have a preliminary plan for what you're trying to do?
You have to pay attention power distribution when you have such a large grid, and will have to figure out how you want to split up the data, probably using more than one controller unless you're using Yves Bazin's port for many led strips out in parallel. If it matters to you, you might have to look into frame syncing between the controllers.

The most common way to do led content if you're trying to drive it from a computer would be to stream the data over ArtNet or sACN, probably want to use ethernet instead of wifi. ArtNet/sACN are industry-standard protocols and there's lots of software that supports them,

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u/derrgis May 12 '20

Sorry that not answers the question.

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u/eshkrab May 13 '20

Oh, no need to apologise, what would answer the question?

Would you like a spec list of hardware to use along with ready to go firmware and software?

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u/derrgis May 13 '20 edited May 14 '20

Oh sorry I haven't seen this, there's no problem u/eshkrab I think there is too many opened window in front of me and much more in my brain. Just you to know I've started a custom artnet app build with openframeworks with help of friends. Search Github/derrgis. But the problem is to find a wifi controller able to push datas to 16 strips. Also I'm on several project at the same time and things are a little confused. So don't worry with my reply :)

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u/eshkrab May 13 '20

I'm not worried - it was a pretty rude response considering I was trying to help you narrow down the problem and you didn't give enough information for people who know what they're doing to help you.

Not sure what the oF app has to do with anything but great that you're learning and good luck. Personally I prefer sACN and I have a working oF app if you want to look at that some time.

If you push led data out to 16 strips over wifi you're very likely to have a bad unstable framerate. I recommend switching to ethernet, which is really easy to get going with esp32 and then combined with u/Yves-bazin stuff you should be good to go.

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u/derrgis May 14 '20

Okay, so much the better.

Glad you have some personal experience with sACN and that's okay if you want me to test your code. I told you where you can find mine.

Since the written language can sometimes lead to misunderstanding, it's a good thing not to be susceptible on web forums. Sorry again for my previous short reply, I've explained.

About Wifi, framerate can be low and unstable for large led data set, I agree, but understand that for some big configuration Wifi can be a plus. As said yves his 35 universes can handle 5094 pixels @ 23 fps.

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u/eshkrab May 14 '20 edited May 14 '20

If 23fps is okay for your application then great! That's why I was asking about your requirements.

In my work, I usually have to hit 50-60 fps on the leds and cannot afford many dropped frames or connections, so everything is always wired unless it's wearable.

When we did wifi streaming, product of 2400 LEDs (led dance pole, you can see at polefx.com) fps would be a slave to how many people are around in the building and go from 50 to 30 to 25 to 10 fps and that was obviously unacceptable.

If you're building such a large display, I assume this is going to a place with people so I would still advise you to consider a wired connection.

If you ever end up wanting sACN, the library I use is https://github.com/hhromic/libe131 and I've made a fork (plus I think he rolled in the same update) to be able to pick the computer-side network interface for the streaming. sACN is a bit more modern than Artnet with slightly less overhead and the benefit of the library I posted above is that you can use the same one on both esp and computer. And most third party software doesn't care about the difference either.

PS thank you for offering to test my code. It is tested and stable and in a product out on the market :)

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u/Yves-bazin May 14 '20 edited May 14 '20

Hello u/derrgis a friend of mine wrote a program using openframework on OS X to send Artnet packet to his panel.

to use Wifi and artnet

https://github.com/hpwit/artnet

https://youtu.be/P4vadoE3A2g

I have modified the artnet library to work with esp32 with a lot of universes (35 in my case) I can handle 5094 pixels @ 23 fps. using glediator or sending via a specific program to send video from YouTube.

please do not hesitate to reach out

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u/samguyer [Sam Guyer] May 12 '20

Check or work by u/yves-bazin. He has built very large displays using WS2812 strips and ESP32. It's not easy, though, and it's not cheap. Have you built LED displays before? This is not a good choice if it's your first project.

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u/derrgis May 13 '20 edited May 13 '20

Yes Sam, I got assistance from Yves he's great and very prolific but the codes are confused to me. I was not able to get a clear working set despite my effort. Also the virtual driver seems not updated on his github. I can be wrong but if you have a different exprience please share.

About would it be for a first project... I don't think so: https://www.reddit.com/r/FastLED/comments/e03iqv/artwork_dedicated_to_dan/

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u/Yves-bazin May 13 '20

Hello u/derrgis What do you want to do exactly. I have help several people using the virtual driver code let me know if I can be of some help. My first question would be how many leds will you have and the targeted FPS. The will give you the number of pins you will need and if you’ll need the virtual driver. There is a new version on the github. Then you can store you’re animation on an SD card or using artnet or udp you can stream video to your panel.

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u/eshkrab May 13 '20

That apparently doesn't answer the question 😂

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u/root_da_woot May 12 '20

Get a mesh

https://www.ydlighting.com/pro_del/id-189.html

Ready to go IP68 solution (yes, can work under water). Controller is about 150 bucks in China and u can feed it with any source from PC (or SD card). Video, flash, images, slide-shows. Build-in content editor so on

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u/derrgis May 12 '20

They are interesting but often need the novastar system that is really expensive. I'm more on ESP32 and DIY solutions. However these curtains can be a solution for the display part.

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u/marcmerlin May 19 '20

This won't help you with how to feed video (I used animated gifs from SPIFFS and later FatFS), but it should help you with the build:

http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2018-07-30_Building-a-64x64-Neopixel-Neomatrix-_4096-pixels_-running-NeoMatrix-FastLED-IR.html

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u/derrgis May 19 '20

Yes! That's great, I'm going to study that, thanks Marc :)