Inside the Project MC2 video purse. (Actual video wall panel!)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2024
- This is rather high tech merchandise from a TV series called Project MC2. It's about a group of female government operatives engaged in covert activities to save the world.
The slightly hideous hard plastic bag is actually very well designed for what it is, and contains some jaw-droppingly advanced components for a toy. And by that I mean a proper LED module you'd find in full size video walls.
Even more impressive is that all the components used are off the shelf except for the mystery microcontroller under a blob of black resin.
Adafruit have an extensive PDF datasheet showing how to connect panels like this to an Arduino.
cdn-learn.adafruit.com/downlo...
Adafruit's main website:- www.adafruit.com/
Note that the display is "dumb". It is just a series of shift registers to load LED data across the display and some control lines for scanning 8 pairs of rows. It's actually so simple that with a 3V supply (to limit the current while abusing it) you can generate rogue data and row drive signals by running your fingers across the serial input connector pins. The simplicity of the display means that it doesn't do any fancy image storage on the panel. You have to keep firing out serial data and scanning the lines to get an image. When you realise how it works you suddenly recognise all the visual effects you get when sections of video wall fail. It's usually down to bad interconnects dropping colour data or clock/strobe/output-enable signals between boards.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of TH-cam's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I immediately want to run a cellular automaton on it. Conway's Game of Life is the most famous, but as there are multiple colours you could use Wireworld - which is a cellular automaton simulating electronics, complete with diodes.
Definitely need another video Clive with a custom Setup 👌
I strongly agree with this statement.
also how did he post it 3 days ago when this went up today?
@@ChrisD4335 Most probably for his Patreons?
We shouldn't be denied some custom Big Clive handbag graphics and a nice random walkabout with this nice handbag.
Hear us Clive! Program the handbag, if only for shits & giggles!
@@ChrisD4335 patreon :)
So I've now just bought one of these....thanks Clive 😁😂 Let's hope that the packaging is discreet...…. 😵
so as far as the app you can grab the apk and decompress it and there is a directory that has all the bits to program it... evidently the app sends a heartbeat out so the app knows that the phone is connected??? also it is some kind of FSK using comwirelite library (???) and under the APK in apk file --> sources --> com --> generalplus -->comwirelite2 it breaks down the whole protocol for communicating with the unit as is.... :P
Put the Nyan Cat video on it and it'd be purfect.
purrrrrrrrrrfect!
Thank you as I wasn't the only one thinking the same.
th-cam.com/video/QH2-TGUlwu4/w-d-xo.html Thank you, you're welcome
LOL... I had the Nyan Cat song playing in my head when he turned it on. Awesome how certain things trigger memories.
Yep, and going on 8 years now since those days I believe.
Thanks for the heads up. Amazon in the US has these for around $9 so i scooped up a couple just to tinker... of course only after wearing the flashy accessory a bit around town
Damn, this is a cool thing! And a great source of RGB LED panels, pre-soldered and ready to use!
I've been doing a fair amount of work in an amusement arcade. Using huidu controllers and the AliExpress panels 5mm, 2.5mm and 2mm spacings. There's soo much you can do, and they're brighter than an LCD screen so great for signage.
Niiiice! I bought 2 of these on the clearance aisle at walmart about a year ago, they were $10 each! I've manged to wire it up to an arduino and control it with the adafruit RGBMatrixPanel library. I've been hoping you'd take something like this to bits so I could learn more about it, your knowledge of this stuff far exceeds my own. Ok, I'm unpausing and watching the video now.
I've JUST got into these LED panel setups and bought a 16x16 one and an T1000-S controller after having an addressable LED strip on my wall for gawd knows how long, then Clive uploads a video about one! Thanks man. I learnt a lot from this :)
Still fcuking around with it though..
It basically uses a bunch of shift registers where you can shift in the desired pattern for 1 line (or in this case for 1 line of the top half and another line for the bottom half). You then switch to the next line using the 3 to 8 decoder and shift in the pattern for the next line until you filled the whole display. This must be done fast enough to see a stable and flicker-free image (and to not damage the LEDs). To further control the brightness of the R/G/B channel of each individual LED you don't turn on the channel in every refresh cycle but just an appropriate number of times to achieve the desired channel brightness. (This is actually the naive way of doing it, there are smarter ways to keep processor load low). I played with a 32x32 panel a few years ago - 12bit color and a good refresh rate are relatively easy to achieve with a 8 bit avr running at 16 MHz, with some inline assembly 15bit are probably possible. Those panels are really neat indeed.
I would like to customize one of these for my car to insult bad drivers
That was exactly my idea! 😁
I do like Adafruit for their custom made boards, but when it comes to things that they simply imported from China and are reselling (like the video walls), they mark it up a ridiculous amount. I get that they have tested multiple suppliers and have chosen the most reliable one or whatever, but their markup is still just way too high. And anyway, the people I bought from at aliexpress gave me decent support including newer software and profiles for my panels than the Adafruit support gives out.
Finally got off my lazy tail and ordered the last parts I needed for this project (more bread-board F-F wires and a mosfet adaptor/barrel connector pair for the power) and can actually get it up and running! Thanks so much for this awesome idea (and cheap parts-source), Clive! I've been putting off a project for a while, but start on it tonight. The goal: I may be way older than the average rider, and yeah, people laugh, but I have a heavily modified older (1st gen, took a while to find one of those nice heavy-duty frames that wasn't cheap-from-china quality, but manufactured in... I want to say Michigan? Might have been Detroit though... But yeah. USA-made 1st gen model) Razor 300S (minus the seat, because no WAY am I sitting down at those speeds) that I have... adapted. I am a smaller person, in that I fit the "suggested weight range" for that scooter when it's OEM, but what would it be without a nice high-amperage ~600w motor upgrade, running at 36v vs the original 250w/24v one? Top OEM speed: 11-12mph. Range: 4-5 miles. Mine: max speed 42-45mph for 7-8 miles. And takes less time to recharge.
My goal is to replace the aluminum deck panel (yeah, they weren't always plastic) with another one of the same, BUT cut a channel down the middle to put 3 of these boards end-to-end on it, then just put a thick layer (few coats) of UV-blocking shellac over them for protection. This would run animations under my feet while riding. Useful? Not really. But then... how many of these projects really ARE? Still worth it for me, as I've now spent a few months learning a HUGE amount about these 75HUB panels and matrix displays - I'd originally been looking at using APA102C panels, and the only thing stopping me was the cost. With these coming for as cheaply as $17? (what I paid, with shipping, on eBay for one) There's no reason left for me not to get on it, so now that my Amazon package has shown up, I should have a working prototype by this weekend. It'll start with basic animation, but I definitely will be wiring this into the lightning setup, which I'm already using a raspberry pi zero for. (Turn signals, brake light, headlights, power-monitoring/current/range logging via a serial bluetooth connection, so I have a constant battery level display etc (all on my phone for now - LCD touch panel comes later, heh. Still working on this thing, always making little changes.) - been using cheap bicycle turn signals etc and just wiring them into the pi for control there.)
Thanks so much, Clive, for helping us out with these sorts of projects by tearing stuff down like this to show us how it's made, how it works, and how WE can repurpose the hardware. I love it!
I just love your new handbag.
4:06 "A lot of thought has gone into this" and just then the zipper thingy falls off.
He had just undone a bunch of screws
@@TonyLing Still funny nonetheless.
Arh Clive I See your new Sporran Has finally Arrived it will go Beautifully with your fluffy pink Mankini
Picked up 2 of these on Amazon for $12 a piece. Very cool. Thanks Clive.
Just bough two from amazon. Selected “amazon packaging” lol. Cheapest price for a panel that size I’ve found! Also free shipping so.. Thanks Clive!!
I cant believe I never thought to tell Big Clive about these. When I purchased them and left the review on behalf of our Makerspace fizzPOP, they where only £9.99 each in the black Friday sale. They are still a bargain at £15 though. I think in total the fizzPOP members purchased about 30.
love this one Clive. Fun eccentric object
"Alot of thought has gone into this" -zipper falls off.
11:33 - "Also because you don't want to blind people with your video wall handbag." Yes, considering they're probably already getting blinded by the almost fluorescent pink of the "bag" itself. Wow that thing is absolutely lurid...lol
Nobody cares about the purse or its color, rather the useful internals. And yes, it is lurid.
We can split the $ and buy one, you get the purse, I'll keep the guts. And I'll generously let you keep the zip too!
@@111chicane Actually I agree that this is a wonderful way to buy a video wall or just a programmable LED panel on the cheap. I wouldn't buy this for the "purse" either, no matter what color it came in. ;)
It reminds me of the anti-paparazzi devices some celebrities carry. Essentially an LED slave photo strobe. So when someone tries taking their picture with a strobe, it flashes in sync pointing at the camera and washes out the image.
That LED panel looks almost like a Lego floor panel... Saturday Night Fever diorama!
That is great imagination. I can totally see that.
Great video big Clive
Thanks, Clive! I just ordered one from US Ebay for $9.40 and free shipping. :)
Well, that's the award winning xmas jumper sorted...
Edit: just looked at the prices on aliexpress for a bare 32x32 module; 11.70 freedom bucks!
I didn't realise the bare modules were that cheap. How things have changed from the earliest million pound low resolution video walls.
The cost for the panels in the toy is $8'ish. Excluding all the free plastic.
Yes, when you think how much displays such as the jumbotron and black diamond must have cost even though the resolution was pretty poor by todays standards.
Was watching some late 80's family fortunes the other day and was surprised that they for a while used a proper video wall (rather than the 90/00?'s episodes that used the yellow flip dot display), I'm guessing it was so expensive that it must have gone wrong after a couple of years and the cost of the flip dot display was still significantly cheaper than replacing/repairing it. You do get a nice load of close up shots of the display where each pixel is clearly visible.
One interesting note was that when they were showing prizes people had won on the screen the resolution was so poor that they still had to broadcast a picture of the item, i doubt the resolution of the later flip dot display was that much worse.@@bigclivedotcom
And yet gameshows these days curtain-clad the entire studio in pixel panels with gay abandon!
Check the shipping cost, sometimes sellers just offset the real cost + profit into the shipping cost.
The screen is smaller than a Windows 3.11 application icon :D
However, put some "movie" made of only red pixels, attach some high capacity 6V to it, and fancy bike tail light :)
Great .... now I have to build a video wall device :)
Clive, at CES this year there was a purse that had a bendable oled panel built in.
These are typically 1/4 or 1/8 scan panels so only that many are lit at one time. My 1/4 scan board pulls about 2A when full/white on.
Damn You Clive!!! I just ordered one!
Just bought 2 of these things on amazon for $7, and arrived next day! :D
After reading over the pdf Adafruit provided, this sounds distinctly like my very first addressable RGB circuit I built. It used a line of shift registers to update tri color LEDs. It worked pretty much the same; the signal would turn LEDs on and off, it required a clock signal, and to get faded colors meant a high update frequency (which my board couldn't handle). I then discovered neopixels and never looked back lol.
Fizzpop person here, which is the Birmingham, UK Makerspace. That comment was from one of our peeps. The diffuser panel on the front was an important part of the cheap value of it. A lot of handbags were ordered and thus price rose from 10 quid to 15 and now 20 it seems. We are quite good at ninjaing on deals. We did a similar neopixel commercial thing for the now dead-ish Maplin As featured here: th-cam.com/video/qP1G6RUYejY/w-d-xo.html. Also The Adafruit stuff we used is here: blog.adafruit.com/2016/12/28/create-the-ultimate-holiday-jumper-with-arduino/
We had the honour of being rated as the best Christmas jumper in one article and the worst Christmas jumper in another article. Both articles from the Daily Mail. Reminds me of the stuff makes you healthier, same stuff gives you cancer stuff they do. I did a bunch of the animations and some cool ones were chopped out. A whole bunch of different stuff came out of the present for instance, My favourite anim was my jumper inside the screen which has a screen and so on, as it asks the question are we just complex animations inside a Christmas jumper? Does the regress end in a reality prime? the person modelling our jumper was a hipster someone hired to model it. Any questions?
Feels so retro.
Compared to addressable LEDs it is. But most video walls still seem to be based on discrete circuitry.
I had to buy 3 of these after watching :)
This will be a embarrassing day at the
Post office 😅
It's a Lite Brite!
I created a project that drives these types of panels from an ESP32 as a wall clock display using NTP to stay synchronized. Ordering 3 to evaluate but I imagine the inventory is being liquidated.
That's a very nice Led Board Big Clive
Great video big clive
"Ladies involved in nefarious spy activities" xD
You could use it to show bigclivedotcom text in some videos?
There are two kinds of LED panel when it comes to how they plug, some use those same block connectors for power delivery and data and some have that molex style plug on them. this looks like one of the cheaper ones, though this looks like a 6mm pitch as well.
It's cool and it's pink. My prayers have been answered.
0:37 My favorite song by far!
we use them in animated christmas light displays. Normally refereed to as P10 / P6 LED Panels normally 1/8 scan rates.
you can drive them with a raspberry pi running Falcon Pi Player with a Pi Hat.
Nice video and explanation. Nicely timed as I'm looking into replacing my 2mtr X 1mtr Chatteris Christmas Lights video wall (ws2812a) with these types of panel. Although i'm looking into the p3 (3mm pitch). They are driven through the hub75 interface. Linsden make the sender and receiver cards needed to drive an array of these led panels. Ethernet cables link the 2 cards together.
This is my project for our 2019 display.
So far I've found free software called Ledstudio, for programming via a PC. Although I wish to drive the show from a Raspberry pi.
I got 9 of them a week ago and now the LED display is being used as an art frame for 32x16 8bit images. It's a cheaper way to get LED displays for cheap vs the adafruit led display. I kept all of the screws and springs for other 3d printed projects. The rest of the plastic I tossed out due to not knowing what type of plastic it is, thus could not use it for 3d printing material.
A Pi + the LED display will take up to a whee over 2amps of power when all 512 LEDs are white and 100% brightness.
Do you know if these panels are able to be “seriesed up” to make a higher resolution panel, or would you need a bunch of independent subpanels?
@@mrb692 That appears to be what the second connector would be for. So you would have to add the connector back on with these.
@@mrb692 Yes they can be. You'll just need to put on a 16 Pin surface mount boxed header on the output side that will connect to the input side on the other matrix board.
www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sullins-connector-solutions/SBH11-NBPC-D08-SM-BK/S9187-ND/1990080
You can get them a bit cheaper on Ali Express
Yes probably, see www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=cdn-learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/32x16-32x32-rgb-led-matrix.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjw7Zuwk-zfAhUzrXEKHdEsCGAQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw19ARemQn6wc_R3kUwrp2Y2
@bigclivedotcom I just want to thank you for the amazing tear down and reverse engineering content you put out. Watching your videos (along with AvE) has convinced me to change majors in college! I was in Mechanical Engineering, but I was not happy. You two are the kick in the arse I needed to pull the trigger and change to Electrical Engineering Technology. Once again, thank you both!
Hmm... wonder what you could do with some reprogramming, a Hippotizer and a Road Hog 4 console??
as someone else said I fully agree it would be lovely if you make a video where you address this panel with say an Arduino and show some graphics/text on it
There is a trick for doing inverse polarity protection with a MOSFET. Basically, a P channel MOSFET is installed in the positive path with its protection diode so that it conducts with normal voltage. The gate of the MOSFET is wired to ground (via a resistor) to turn on the MOSFET. Reverse power switches off the MOSFET.
They have a subscription service to get a box delivered every three months. Affordable and looks interesting if you are into electronics.
Hi Big Clive, I'm sure I've heard you talk about chokes and ferrite rings in previous videos, but have you considered devoting a video to methods you can employ to reduce video interference on systems like cctv installs. Were you have multiple cables running all over the house, across all manner of "noisey" pipes and wires, coupled with multiple cheap psu's, and ending up with noise bars moving across the monitor. Cheers Ant
I'd strip it back and have the panel on a display stand and have NYAN CAT on constantly...
It's pink and it suits your channel :-D
Something to be seen with in the Glasgow clubs perchance? I'm off to buy some handbags tomorrow!
I assume it would be MC squared as a pun based on E=MC2.
Aliexpress has LED video wall drivers that can be easily driven over LAN.
I just looked it up, the led matrix is cheaper than the handbag (at the moment)
Pages with Review, Amazon listing, and Netflix series, chelseamamma.co.uk/project-mc2-pixel-purse-review/ www.amazon.co.uk/Project-Mc2-545170E4C-Pixel-Purse/dp/B06XT2LQPL/ www.netflix.com/title/80058852 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mc2
Cool thumbs up
Someone NEEDS to mod it to play doom.
The hero we didn't know we needed 👍 ✋
YES!
Just a heads up that as of now (mid-March, 2019) these are down to $8.30 in the US. 1/3 the cost of Adafruit, and less than half of Aliexpress.
Interesting that they left out one of the serial connectors but they left on the power connector even though they aren't using it.
OK, just received the MC2 Smart Pixel Purse, BUT I can't upload anything from several SAMSUNG phones or tablets (the list of compatible devices lists several Samsung devices...) but I was able to upload my designs from old phone "ALCATEL Onetouch"; that isn't on the list. I think this can be because the input stereo-jack cable has non-standard order (and or reversed stereo contacts....). BUT I am interested to see if you can make the Arduino interface for the display to work. Are you - or anyone out there - able to help or point me to a solution? Does anyone knows if the stereo jack is using both stereo channels when writing to the unit? Or is there a way to make a custom cable to reverse/combine the stereo to a MONO output, so the software works on most phones? Thanks.
Is there a way to use a USB power bank to power the bag in place of the batteries?
I plan to get one of these and retrofit it into my wife's Louis Vuitton as a birthday suprise.
Just checked... these cost 160 bucks here in Brazil. Yikes!
On the other hand, found 'em on eBay from 10-15 bucks!
Guess which I'm gonna buy lol
hey where to get that magnifying glass
I got 2 for my girls for Christmas, now I know I can make them better or repurpose them if they stop playing with them
interesting no idea what its all about is there an orange one ?
Well, it's about as high resolution as J. L. Baird's mechanical telly... :P
Like a kid in a sweet shop.
Made by a kid in a sweat shop
Ordering from the uk, amazon 19.99. Amazon.com - after shipping and import - 12.00.
Should play Bad Apple on the display :)
Programming by audio??? Sounds like ZX spectrum stuff, using a cassette tape for loading!
Essentially still how mass server backups are done, huge magnet tape reels.
The ZX-80 likely had more parts for the job than this board. The Z80 micro wrote to a port that set or cleared a flip-flop. This was the same flip-flop as did the sync pulse for the TV. I don't know if that means we have to count that flip-flop as part of the circuit or not.
On this thing, I would bet there is little more than an RC on the way to a pin on the micro. The micro may have a UART in it. The audio would be awful to listen to but who cares.
Where did you say this product can be purchased at? Thanks.... I was able to get it on AMAZON here in the USA. There are several, one cost me only $9.99 including SH!
What? No link in the video description?!
The video wall panel can also be purchased separately online
Where can I get one? :D
would make an awesome mod for a pc case - where to buy?
Would love to see you use this in some kind of 1-off project.
I wrote some test software last night.
What!? Im a guy and i want that light panel!
Would you happen to know the proper part to solder onto the board for the pass through connector?
I'd guess it's a fairly standard surface mount ribbon cable connector.
Nice.
why does the 3.5mm jack have gnd right left and mic on it? does it interface the microphone from the phone in some way?
You can get headsets with microphones in them.
Does it do any display if you play audio into it?
wondering if Clive has a hidden, pink switch. . .and what happens when you switch it over to "Try Me" .
i paused at 1:47 .. From the moment I saw this thing it's painfully obvious to me that somebody designed this for candy raver girls.. or like burning man festival girls, or just those girls that go clubbing with stuff like this.. And if it wasnt designed for them on purpose, lol then they inadvertently designed it for them.. I don't see any other targets demographic besides raver girls wearing all kinds of bright lights and glowing bracelets and necklaces and Candy jewelry walking around with this purse displaying things like p.l.u.r. love etc.. and all this other stuff or whatever designs and patterns.. and it also reminds me of Deadmau5 for some reason because of the Matrix display
Wish I'd seen this 7 days ago, I binned the display and kept the bag...
On things that didn't happen for 100, Alex
I love Pink Bags not shift registers...
Very much up my street, nod to your friend who pointed it out. Anyone found a supplier in the UK?
PS, Clive, have you looked at "smart LEDs" (neopixels)? Fully programmable led strips that cost not much more than the usual four pin strips
Smyths toy stores had them for £15 a month or so ago
Multiplayer Tetris with arduino?
what would be really awesome... do your thing on a full sized LED BillBoard... :)
The headphone jack I wonder if it is a way to turn it into a color organ perhaps.
It would be nice to put powerbank module instead of the AA's to feed cell phone and LED "Tube"
04:05
- _A lot of thought has gone into this!_
*The ziplock immediately falls off…*
This so-called "spy bag" reminds me of the old saying "the worlds most famous spy is simultaneously the worlds worst spy."
Wait... a video wall handbag with an FSK modem for receiving data? 😵
Reverse engineering the protocol can be a bit of fun...
It holds stuff too.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's just passing on the RGB values in sequence. Just have to know how many steps it supports (is it a full 0 - 255?), the 1 and 0 tones, and its baud rate. Might also have something like an end code to page through a multiple image sequence and another one for the full loop. (Just trying to guess, but there's got to be some kind of KISS logic to it.)
Anyone want to download the app and make a few test pattern and convert the audio to mp3? Shouldn't be hard to reverse it
@@pauljs75
Perhaps something audio that drives an RS-232 port on the micro would be how it is done.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back when folks stored data on audio cassette tape, a trick was to just band pass filter some RS232 and record it. Recovering the data involved an amplifier/comparitor and little else.@@pauljs75
Pink or not, I want that as my tool bag. :-)
Totally not the cheapest way to get LED wall panels, also you can get Linsn or Artfox LED send/receive cards online to drive them with dmx/artnet or even run video though a decoder. The parts themselves are pretty cheap for video wells. At least in contrast to lasers lol.