[bshep]

You can use a colorlight card to control the panels, they can be had for $15 and connect to the nerwork using gigabit ethernet ( must be gigabit ). You then send then data using the windows software or you can use a Pi/computer running FPP software to send whatever you want.

This would reduce cost to:

2x panels

1x colorlight card

1x power supply

Misc cables / case

Edit: The card can handle an 8x8 matrix of panels ( IIRC ) and the cards can be chained together to make larger displays. I dont recall the max size. The biggest I’ve made is 5x5 for a xmas display.

[tyingq]

Interesting. Can you interact in a sort of live/api way, or is it limited to writing configuration and "launching" it?

Edit: Ahh, that's a great option...assuming that reverse engineered way to send frames is stable, etc.

[bshep]

So the configuration is a one time thing to set the card parameters, you shouldn’t need to touch it once its setup for your panels and layout. As far as I know it can only be done using their widows app.

The display is done by sending the card network frames ( someone did a reverse engineering of the protocol, i dont know the details ). You can send the display anything you want.

[bshep]

I just got home and was able to look at some of the RE efforts, here is one that looked interesting:

https://hkubota.wordpress.com/2022/01/31/winter-project-colo...