Hello,
I am a complete beginner to this and I am currently trying to set up Adafruit Matrix Portal M4 and 32 x32 LED RGB Matrix.
I have followed Adafruits set up guide but I am struggling with the code to program the Adafruit Matrix Portal M4. At the moment I am getting a strip of some green lights but can move past this.
I am using Arduino IDE to program the Adafruit Matrix Portal M4.
I have successfully programmed a 16 x 16 matrix but this 32 x 32 is proving to be very tricky
Any suggestions would be helpful
One big difference between a 16x16 matrix and a 32x32 is the power requirement. Can you describe the power arrangement you have for the matrix and show how you have the connections set up?
The recommendation is for a power supply of up to 4A, so if your supply really is 2.4A it’s likely the problem. The area you have indicated is probably a line driver and it might be running at normal temperature (line drivers do run hot) or it might indicate that it is struggling to drive the LEDS with a low voltage. However as only one of the eight is getting very hot it might indicate a hardware fault.
Have you tried configuring the display as 4x4 or even 1x8 (I think it will handle that correctly) to see if the coding is OK and it works when there is only a light load on the power supply. In any case, I would recommend monitoring the voltage at the panel to confirm that your supply is maintaining a good steady 5V under load.
The image above is the example sand code (Arduino IDE). However, where the green stable lines are, the animation is not responding in that quarter of the screen, do you think this has to do with the C15 line driver getting hot?
That sounds likely. If you can get smaller portions of the display to work then that demonstrates that (at least for small portions) the power supply is adequate. The fact that one chip is getting hot and the others are not is also a good indication. And the fact that the problem area is a rectangle connects the problem to one of the driver chips. But note that the fault might not be in the chip itself, but (for instance) in the connections to the LEDs.
By my count that chip would be driving 1/8 of the display area, but if it is faulty then who knows how it might behave. You could experiment to see if there is a larger portion that is not lit, but is non-functional. FWIW green seems to be the default for these LEDS when they are not being correctly controlled. My guess is that there is a short in the LED connections, possibly within a LED itself, and that is causing both the display fault and the overheating.
It depends on how that library works, but I’m pretty sure that if you just change the ‘#define HEIGHT’ and ‘#define WIDTH’ values from 32 to something smaller, say 4 and 4, then your display will be restricted to that area. You can’t choose where it starts, however, so you can’t put this area wherever you want, but you can limit the area you are using.
If the unit really is faulty then you should return it for repair. The supplier will have a process for confirming that it is eligible for return. As far as I am aware this unit is as good as any, and better than many.
Thanks for letting us know that you got it sorted, but what was the outcome?
Are you simply adjusting the project so that you only need to use a portion of the display? That is a practical and effective solution that I am pleased to have been able to suggest, assuming that the hot part doesn’t get any hotter.
No real outcome, yet.
However, I have got in contact with Core Electronics to look at the hardware. As I said tiny steps. I will be back with more questions once I get the entire panel working. The hot part is concerning and needs attention.
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