There are two ways to approach this project.
Which you choose should depend on whether you are looking to do:
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AV approach – Showcase work developed for high-level languages, scripting languages, or tools like a web browser or a games engine.
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DIY electronics approach – Showcase work you will modify or develop for this project.
AV Approach
These panels’ popularity and low cost are driven by their use in the live events industry and digital signage, which use these large-pixel, low-resolution panels in various applications, including digital billboards, festivals, etc…
Much higher resolution (smaller pixel pitch) panels with drivers designed to achieve a finer colour gamut are increasingly being used in TV and Film production to create virtual sets, a process generally known as Virtual Production.
These panels are usually mounted in interlocking metal frames with a driver board and power supply. They typically use a non-standard protocol to send the signal back to a video processor that cuts it up into the correct order and applies transformations to match the panels’ colour and brightness.
Depending on age, these video processors are usually driven by HDMI, SDI, DisplayPort, or DVI. There are more modern ‘digital LED posters’, a self-contained product.
The benefit of this approach is that you can plug any normal video source in over HDMI or similar and quickly get a picture from your existing projects. It can also be repurposed quickly. The disadvantage is that paying for a complete product will be more expensive.
You’ll also be more likely to get high refresh rates and a proper colour gamut.
DIY electronics approach
When working with them as a more DIY project, people tend to pick their favourite microcontroller and programming language and then figure out how to drive the panel in general; however, this will require something relatively fast and with a decent amount of memory. Although, in some cases, it’s not impossible with something like an Arduino Uno, you won’t get the best out of the panel from this.
What you are going to need:
1 - The Microcontroller
What you want to look for is a microcontroller that works with the programming languages you are familiar with and for which a reputable company, like Adafruit, has written a graphics library so you can draw shapes rather than lighting pixels.
Other companies like Seeedstudio and Sparkfun may have them, but Adafruit’s libraries and documentation are generally among the best.
The panel. you shared on Pi Hut has examples for Raspberry Pi (inc PICO) and Arduino (inc ESP32), and STM32 microcontrollers, but it’s not particularly beginner friendly, the Adafruit website has a more beginner approach based around their Feather system of PCBs.
2 - Panel
Pick a panel with a tutorial that matches so you can start quickly.
3 - Power supply
You will need to consider a power supply of the correct voltage, and also sufficient current to light all the pixels are 100% power. The example you shared requires a 5V 4A power supply.
This approach is cheap and allows you to learn about how the technology works. The disadvantage is that you can’t easily use it to display anything other than custom projects. You are likely to come across colour-depth limitations depending on how much memory your processor has and refresh rate limits depending on how fast your processor is and how complicated it is for your graphics to be rendered.
