Very interesting. I wonder why they're changing it, since it isn't all that old. That said, the advances in LED panel technology over the past few years have been staggering, so the new display will probably just use off the shelf Chinese panels. I used to do the servicing on the vintage Scannervision display in Glasgow which used filament lamps with RGB filters in front of them to produce a low resolution colour display. The lamps were 12V xenon gas filled tungsten and switched with triacs.
There is an amazing amount of electronic stuff involved here. Very well made. I bet that must have cost megabucks when that was installed 10 years ago. Thanks for posting.
@Mistamudd I did look, and it only seems to make a difference at pretty extreme angles, though on a large screen I guess you'll have a range of view angles from most viewiing positions, and addiinig a little black lump doesn't exactly cost much!
Nice tear down. I've serviced and worked with Barco's C11 and NX-6 LED displays before. It's interesting the differences. The Barco's tiles tend to have a lot more logic in the tile itself, and linking via DVI cables instead of SDI/HDSDI or whatever system those tiles use.
@ib9rt Not sure exactly, but even if your display data has 8 bits per colour, by the time you add global intensity control for ambient light compensation from sunlight to night-time, and enough resolution to do compensation for LED variations, you're easily over 16 bits.
I actually work with and repair LED screens... I never got as much worked out as you (really never had the time or the need, we just swap parts to get it going ASAP) but this video has been GREAT!! Thanks very much!!!!
Another super teardown Mike. You are the Sherlock Holmes of the electronics world ! btw - the two RED / three RED question really comes down to the easiest way to make a good video White. You can use two reds running at medium intensity OR 1 red running at high intensity. Just so long as video white colour temperatures can be achieved, its 6 of one, half a dozen of the other....
Oh, and the small "bumps" on the front of the louvres are to help improve the contrast ratio of the screen in very bright sunlight. After a while UV and exposure to the elements will tend to "polish" the front of the screen and it will reflect more sunlight at certain times of the day. The bumps help to scatter this reflection a little. I also believe this same mold was modified from an earlier version which had the same 16mm pitch, but used 4 LEDs instead of 3 (2G, 1R, 1B I believe.. ?)_
@coondogtheman1234 Yes. I suspect it's very expensive - if you can afford 6-7 figures for a big screen installation, 4-5 figures for the control box is small change....
Where I live there are a whole bunch of Optec LED displays, and they all use standard 5mm Nichia LEDs potted in marine grade epoxy. For a 25' wide highway billboard sized display, I understand that it takes four weeks to assemble the display and another to calibrate it. The video quality is fantastic; if set up and maintained properly you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a regular paper billboard from a distance during the day.
Nice! I never saw any of their custom installation products, but this system was made by Lighthouse Technologies, 16mm pixel pitch with the down-angled louvers and LEDs for exactly the reasons stated, meant for very high-angle, long distance view. I'd recognize the SIB, ECB, VPC and EMB boards anywhere. I've got a lot of the portable versions of these (LVP-1650/R16) but this seems like an older generation of the same product. The new gen boards combine the 3 main boards into one.
@mikeselectricstuff Seconded. The LEDs in this product are driven at about 20mA to get 5000cd/m2 brightness. LED efficiency and lifetime drop with currents so even with 4:1 mux you may need > 100mA peak current to achieve the same brightness (since you'd have 1/4 the time to light up each LED). So the muxd LEDs would die quick. Also - the drivers would get too hot since they'd be pumping out 100mA all the time.
In terms of input, you'd need an LIP processor (the manufacturer's name for their display interface). Older versions used VGA, newer ones can accept DVI. The electrical specification for the module input (on the BNC connectors) is identical to SD-SDI, but the data format is different. You can actually use regular off-the-shelf broadcast SDI DA's to split the signal to multiple panels or screens, since each module takes care of its own signal-split processing via the address switch.
@coondogtheman1234 These were custom made for the London site, and not very useful for anything else, which is why I got one. You can't display normal video without a lot of pre-processing to format the data.
This stuff is SO COOL!! Huge LED display panels like this are absolutely fascinating, from the huge 5.1v supplies and even the really over built fan control stuff. Your videos are great, as soon as I found your channel I subscribed. I'd post more videos of the stuff I work on on my channel, but there are a ton of people already repairing LCD monitors and TV's and plenty of vids on how to (I fix a ton of them). If something unique comes up I may post a vid on repairing it though.
Very interesting and enjoyable videos! Keep up the good work, I love it when someone with big amounts of knowledge on some topic shares it with others.
These are sooo interesting and truly amazing. I just went over myself and bought a 25"x13" LED-screen from eBay with a built in controller. The resolution is 96x64 and pixel pitch is just 10mm because of single RGB LEDs. Can't wait for it to arrive, i looooove these panels.
@TheChipburner No it isn't. These drivers are cheap - maybe 3 cents per LED. Using many drivers spreads the heat over a large area. Muxing would increase required bandwidth, increase peak LED current which may reduce lifetime, and increase flicker (e.g. when viewed via a video camera). 16x multiplex would never get near the maximum LED brightness.
@bigclivedotcom I guess LED wear-out - apparently it was originally installed 10 years ago, and had the panels replaced about 5 years ago. Olympics probably the excuse to replace. Don't know what they replaced it with, but doubt they'd risk cheapo panels for a high-rent location like this!
Usually full colour LED displays are hooked up to a PC which generates the video feed - the LED display 'simply' displays a specified section of the PC screen. If you can get your analog video on to a PC screen (without bypassing graphics memory like some TV cards) then it is easy. Do a search for "LED Studio" which is currently the most popular system (top end stuff may use something more advanced).
Very interesting stuff. So is this unit yours to keep or do you need to return it? Also Is it possible to input an analog composite video signal via RCA connector into one of these units or a full screen? If so I could hook up a video game system to a display like this.
One thing I may post to my channel, is I have a HUGE old HP VTVM I'm eventually going to restore and use, considering making a series of vids of it's restoration process, even though I have a crap Chinese made DV camera and would have to use a Nuvicon tube video camera for macro shots (but damn it does work well for them, nice optics on those old video cameras).
You mentioned 18 bits of intensity resolution, but what is the smallest change in intensity the human eye can discern? Is there any point going finer than that?
how about a video capture device like the dazzle or the ion video to USB? These take composite video and audio in and outputs via USB. but I was thinking of a box of some type that converts the analog video to the correct signals that can drive the display.
Wow, cool... I am building something quite similar as a graduation project LOL. 32x48 bi-color (red & green) LED matrix.. Powered by ATmega128a with bunch of Allegro A6275's and MOSFETs to power each line... And connectable to PC through USB :)
how i would like some of that coolness!!! great vid....your a fast talker had to play parts twice...and to look at the amazing tech inside your very lucky. thanks for sharing and if you need it removing give us a shout :-)
Trust me he knows exactly what he can poke and what not to poke, he's been doing this stuff for ages, and has probably had his fair share of "electrical bites" and even if by some chance he did get bitten, he's following the one hand rule. As long as you keep one hand away from what your working on and don't ground yourself, a shock may hurt like hell and scare you but you'll survive it. Unless its big HV high amp stuff, leave that to professionals.
APART FROM... the need to use the dummy LED if you go for 1 red. btw - you can prove this works... just look at off angle white with the shader on and then compare it to the shader off. You'll see the difference !
I am a lighting designer, some LED luminaries come in RGBW flavors. That may be the the purpose of those dummy LEDs for use in other models. There are also RGBA, RGBAW, RGBY, RGBI combinations.
Two red LEDs? I've heard about panels with two greens LEDs per pixel to increase the green resolution (because that's what our eyes are most sensitive to.)
Very strange, but their pwm method is very cost-ineffective. It require one IC output per one LED. With multplexed LEDs it will require only one transistor for each row and one for each column, i.e. only 32 outputs to drive 16x16 matrix.
Hey Mike. Just remembering your famous LED tear-down and I thought you might like to see this video showing just how far LED screen technology has moved on since your tear-down modules day. You know you had a 16mm pixel pitch ? Well, try 1.9mm !!! Have a look on my channel for the 24 million LED screen ! All the best. Tom
Your vids are great but your completely nuts!! All touchy feeling of everything! Putting your hands into things that are powered on etc. One day you will regret it! If you have not already :(
Lovely system but can not understand anything you say. It's one monotone mumble. You need to realise your filming a video that people watch. Geek talk is what others call it
Very interesting. I wonder why they're changing it, since it isn't all that old. That said, the advances in LED panel technology over the past few years have been staggering, so the new display will probably just use off the shelf Chinese panels. I used to do the servicing on the vintage Scannervision display in Glasgow which used filament lamps with RGB filters in front of them to produce a low resolution colour display. The lamps were 12V xenon gas filled tungsten and switched with triacs.
There is an amazing amount of electronic stuff involved here.
Very well made.
I bet that must have cost megabucks when that was installed 10 years ago.
Thanks for posting.
@Mistamudd I did look, and it only seems to make a difference at pretty extreme angles, though on a large screen I guess you'll have a range of view angles from most viewiing positions, and addiinig a little black lump doesn't exactly cost much!
Nice tear down. I've serviced and worked with Barco's C11 and NX-6 LED displays before. It's interesting the differences. The Barco's tiles tend to have a lot more logic in the tile itself, and linking via DVI cables instead of SDI/HDSDI or whatever system those tiles use.
@ib9rt Not sure exactly, but even if your display data has 8 bits per colour, by the time you add global intensity control for ambient light compensation from sunlight to night-time, and enough resolution to do compensation for LED variations, you're easily over 16 bits.
I actually work with and repair LED screens... I never got as much worked out as you (really never had the time or the need, we just swap parts to get it going ASAP) but this video has been GREAT!! Thanks very much!!!!
Another super teardown Mike. You are the Sherlock Holmes of the electronics world !
btw - the two RED / three RED question really comes down to the easiest way to make a good video White. You can use two reds running at medium intensity OR 1 red running at high intensity. Just so long as video white colour temperatures can be achieved, its 6 of one, half a dozen of the other....
Oh, and the small "bumps" on the front of the louvres are to help improve the contrast ratio of the screen in very bright sunlight. After a while UV and exposure to the elements will tend to "polish" the front of the screen and it will reflect more sunlight at certain times of the day. The bumps help to scatter this reflection a little. I also believe this same mold was modified from an earlier version which had the same 16mm pitch, but used 4 LEDs instead of 3 (2G, 1R, 1B I believe.. ?)_
@coondogtheman1234 Yes. I suspect it's very expensive - if you can afford 6-7 figures for a big screen installation, 4-5 figures for the control box is small change....
Where I live there are a whole bunch of Optec LED displays, and they all use standard 5mm Nichia LEDs potted in marine grade epoxy. For a 25' wide highway billboard sized display, I understand that it takes four weeks to assemble the display and another to calibrate it. The video quality is fantastic; if set up and maintained properly you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a regular paper billboard from a distance during the day.
Nice! I never saw any of their custom installation products, but this system was made by Lighthouse Technologies, 16mm pixel pitch with the down-angled louvers and LEDs for exactly the reasons stated, meant for very high-angle, long distance view. I'd recognize the SIB, ECB, VPC and EMB boards anywhere. I've got a lot of the portable versions of these (LVP-1650/R16) but this seems like an older generation of the same product. The new gen boards combine the 3 main boards into one.
@mikeselectricstuff Seconded. The LEDs in this product are driven at about 20mA to get 5000cd/m2 brightness. LED efficiency and lifetime drop with currents so even with 4:1 mux you may need > 100mA peak current to achieve the same brightness (since you'd have 1/4 the time to light up each LED). So the muxd LEDs would die quick. Also - the drivers would get too hot since they'd be pumping out 100mA all the time.
In terms of input, you'd need an LIP processor (the manufacturer's name for their display interface). Older versions used VGA, newer ones can accept DVI. The electrical specification for the module input (on the BNC connectors) is identical to SD-SDI, but the data format is different. You can actually use regular off-the-shelf broadcast SDI DA's to split the signal to multiple panels or screens, since each module takes care of its own signal-split processing via the address switch.
@coondogtheman1234 These were custom made for the London site, and not very useful for anything else, which is why I got one. You can't display normal video without a lot of pre-processing to format the data.
@Gameboygenius It's quite a while ago but I'm fairly sure it was 2 reds.
This stuff is SO COOL!! Huge LED display panels like this are absolutely fascinating, from the huge 5.1v supplies and even the really over built fan control stuff. Your videos are great, as soon as I found your channel I subscribed.
I'd post more videos of the stuff I work on on my channel, but there are a ton of people already repairing LCD monitors and TV's and plenty of vids on how to (I fix a ton of them). If something unique comes up I may post a vid on repairing it though.
Very interesting and enjoyable videos! Keep up the good work, I love it when someone with big amounts of knowledge on some topic shares it with others.
Damn, there's a lot of complex engineering in those LED display panels. That was a very cool video. Thank you for showing us. :)
These are sooo interesting and truly amazing. I just went over myself and bought a 25"x13" LED-screen from eBay with a built in controller. The resolution is 96x64 and pixel pitch is just 10mm because of single RGB LEDs. Can't wait for it to arrive, i looooove these panels.
Awesome video's mike! Really like all the technical stuff you do, great entertainment for an Electronic Engineer.
@TheChipburner No it isn't. These drivers are cheap - maybe 3 cents per LED. Using many drivers spreads the heat over a large area. Muxing would increase required bandwidth, increase peak LED current which may reduce lifetime, and increase flicker (e.g. when viewed via a video camera). 16x multiplex would never get near the maximum LED brightness.
This is what I was looking for many days , thanks a lot for such a clear info.
@bigclivedotcom I guess LED wear-out - apparently it was originally installed 10 years ago, and had the panels replaced about 5 years ago. Olympics probably the excuse to replace. Don't know what they replaced it with, but doubt they'd risk cheapo panels for a high-rent location like this!
Usually full colour LED displays are hooked up to a PC which generates the video feed - the LED display 'simply' displays a specified section of the PC screen. If you can get your analog video on to a PC screen (without bypassing graphics memory like some TV cards) then it is easy. Do a search for "LED Studio" which is currently the most popular system (top end stuff may use something more advanced).
@MrGerbilBrain
No. The LEDs are potted in epoxy mounted on an opaque board. What use would making a cube be, when you can't even see the inside?
Very interesting stuff. So is this unit yours to keep or do you need to return it? Also Is it possible to input an analog composite video signal via RCA connector into one of these units or a full screen? If so I could hook up a video game system to a display like this.
@First2ner Agilent MSO6034 scope, with external monitor
One thing I may post to my channel, is I have a HUGE old HP VTVM I'm eventually going to restore and use, considering making a series of vids of it's restoration process, even though I have a crap Chinese made DV camera and would have to use a Nuvicon tube video camera for macro shots (but damn it does work well for them, nice optics on those old video cameras).
6 years ago, but sooo cool! Thanx for that video :O)
You mentioned 18 bits of intensity resolution, but what is the smallest change in intensity the human eye can discern? Is there any point going finer than that?
Nice Video! Did you measure the consumed power with this huge panel when normaly active? would be interested :)
@mikeselectricstuff
isn't there a box or something that can convert the analog video to the format required by the array?
I did not understand a thing but I enjoyed this video.
how about a video capture device like the dazzle or the ion video to USB? These take composite video and audio in and outputs via USB. but I was thinking of a box of some type that converts the analog video to the correct signals that can drive the display.
Wow, cool... I am building something quite similar as a graduation project LOL. 32x48 bi-color (red & green) LED matrix.. Powered by ATmega128a with bunch of Allegro A6275's and MOSFETs to power each line... And connectable to PC through USB :)
Nice and informative! Thanks Mike
what do you use to see this signals?
what did you end up doing with it?
mate - you are fantastic - bravo !
Good day how do you do live stream on one of the p5
how i would like some of that coolness!!! great vid....your a fast talker had to play parts twice...and to look at the amazing tech inside your very lucky.
thanks for sharing and if you need it removing give us a shout :-)
how do you get seasick from a video?
HI ... WHAT RESOLUTION SHOULD I WORK ON IF I HAVE AN LED SCREEN 4*3 METERS
HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT FORMAT SHOULD I RENDER
Trust me he knows exactly what he can poke and what not to poke, he's been doing this stuff for ages, and has probably had his fair share of "electrical bites" and even if by some chance he did get bitten, he's following the one hand rule. As long as you keep one hand away from what your working on and don't ground yourself, a shock may hurt like hell and scare you but you'll survive it. Unless its big HV high amp stuff, leave that to professionals.
How many times have you been shocked?
APART FROM... the need to use the dummy LED if you go for 1 red.
btw - you can prove this works... just look at off angle white with the shader on and then compare it to the shader off. You'll see the difference !
How to change the position and size of the play window?
I am a lighting designer, some LED luminaries come in RGBW flavors. That may be the the purpose of those dummy LEDs for use in other models. There are also RGBA, RGBAW, RGBY, RGBI combinations.
Two red LEDs? I've heard about panels with two greens LEDs per pixel to increase the green resolution (because that's what our eyes are most sensitive to.)
Very strange, but their pwm method is very cost-ineffective. It require one IC output per one LED. With multplexed LEDs it will require only one transistor for each row and one for each column, i.e. only 32 outputs to drive 16x16 matrix.
I am impressed!
now could you make an RGB LED cube with all those LEDs? that would be cool! :D
How much did those modules cost when they were bought?
We have a lot of modules, if you're interested, please send your email to me. thanks
You guys really should look at the pixelpusher. Blows this out of the water.
Hey Mike. Just remembering your famous LED tear-down and I thought you might like to see this video showing just how far LED screen technology has moved on since your tear-down modules day. You know you had a 16mm pixel pitch ? Well, try 1.9mm !!! Have a look on my channel for the 24 million LED screen ! All the best. Tom
Great video Mike! But this is sooo confusing!
Hi,
I am interested in your lighting led product, can you please send me your catalog with your reseller pricing,
Cordially.
lmao these comments are so silly.
And its 2016 and they are just about to fit another screen
Nice . . .
But as for reliability, I would take a Daktronics display over an Optec any day.
We just stumbled across 100 or so of these. Anybody interested in them anymore?!
Your vids are great but your completely nuts!! All touchy feeling of everything! Putting your hands into things that are powered on etc. One day you will regret it! If you have not already :(
Yeah, I like Mike's videos but sometimes he starts talking faster and his words run together making it hard to understand.
You sir, Are amazing :3
They aren't expensive on eBay ;)
Great videos you made. But you talking to fast Mike !
I don't see why this thing should be so complicated...
Lovely system but can not understand anything you say. It's one monotone mumble. You need to realise your filming a video that people watch. Geek talk is what others call it
It's cool you got a bit of the old Pick-a-willy sign but that was a boring video for you mate!
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