Pixblasters Video LED Controller

Combine LED strips to create a huge display that acts as a regular video monitor.

Nov 04, 2019

Project update 5 of 20

How to Make Really Big Video LED Displays

by Gordan G

The Pixblasters Video LED Controller is designed to be expandable and to support really big video LED displays. While a single Pixblasters MS1 video LED controller drives up to 16,384 LEDs, multiple daisy-chained Pixblasters MS1 controllers can potentially drive hundreds of thousands of LEDs. To provide the simplest possible video display’s architectures, each Pixblasters controller can operate either in Master or Slave modes. Figure 1 below explains the Pixblasters daisy-chain system connections and provides an example architecture of 18.8 m2 (202 ft2) video display built of 60 LEDs/meter addressable RGB LED strips. For more technical details, please see the Pixblasters product flyer.

Figure 1 – Architecture of Video LED Display Driven by Daisy-chained Pixblasters Controllers (click for full size image)

Pixblasters MS1 daisy-chained big display workflow:

* Full control link capabilities are TBD.

The Figure 2 explains video inputs and video outputs of the Pixblasters Video LED Controller. The Master Video Input should be used only on the first Pixblasters MS1 controller in the daisy chain. That board connects to the control computer by a monitor cable. DIP switches must be set for the Master FPGA configuration, as explained in the User’s Manual delivered with the board.

Figure 2 – Pixblasters Video Inputs and Outputs

Slave boards in the Pixblasters daisy-chain do not use the Master Video Input. Instead, they receive the video signal through the Ethernet (STP) cable connected to the Slave Video Connector. Regardless of the configured Master/Slave mode, each Pixblasters MS1 controller sources video signal through the Video Output connector.

The following 2 min video clip explains how to connect Pixblasters MS1 controllers to support very big video LED displays.


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