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SeedStudio 16x32 Red LED Matrix Panel Setup on Arduino

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I recently ordered the Ultrathin 16x32 Red LED Matrix Panel from seeedstudio.com.

Running the LED matrix panel
Running the panel with the loop example code. Unfortunately the Arduino is a bit too slow and the display is flickering.

Code #

Seeedstudio provides an Arduino library on Github which is Apache Licensed.

A reader has notified me that the Seeedstudio code is inefficient and that one should use the SPI ports. I will update the code in a few days.

Wiring #

Unfortunately the panel is not documented. Reading the Seeedstudio library available on github I noticed that the library expects several inputs:

LEDMatrix::LEDMatrix(uint8_t a, 
                     uint8_t b, 
                     uint8_t c, 
                     uint8_t d, 
                     uint8_t oe, 
                     uint8_t r1, 
                     uint8_t stb, 
                     uint8_t clk)
{
    // ...
}

Which correspond to the ports available on the board

Ultrathin 16x32 Red LED Matrix Panel wiring

Hence I simply needed to connect the wires: a, b, c, d, oe, r1, stb and clk to the digital pins on the arduino and the gnd wires to ground on the Arduino. The wires g1 and nc can be ignored. The panels are connected to 5V power supplies.

For me the wiring looks like this:

Led matrix panel wiring

Multiple Panels #

Interestingly the panels can be directly connected. Seeedstudio provides a cable for the panel interconnect.

Led matrix panel interconnect

According to the Arduino library the at least 6 panels can be interconnected:

/**
 * Coordinate & Connection (Arduino -> panel 0 -> panel 1 -> ...)
 *   (0, 0)                                     (0, 0)
 *     +--------+--------+--------+               +--------+--------+
 *     |   5    |    3   |    1   |               |    1   |    0   |
 *     |        |        |        |               |        |        |<----- Arduino
 *     +--------+--------+--------+               +--------+--------+
 *     |   4    |    2   |    0   |                              (64, 16)
 *     |        |        |        |<----- Arduino
 *     +--------+--------+--------+
 *                             (96, 32)
 *
 * Source: https://github.com/Seeed-Studio/Ultrathin_LED_Matrix/blob/master/LEDMatrix.cpp
 * Author: Yihui Xiong
 */