Is it possible to connect 100 panels of 16*32 P10 RGB led matrix with single Raspberry Pi3?

1

Hello all,

Summary
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Yes it is possible.
Your matrix have 512 pixels. Hundred of them gives 51k pixels. You can split them into 2 chains (25k pixels each) or 3 chains (17k pixels each).

It is recommended to use about 16k pixels per panel chain. Do not exceed 32k pixels per chain. So You’re fine. Just try to use 3 chains for best image quality.

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@Amruta_2020 ultimately, there shouldn’t be a limit to how many panels you can connect, but eventually you’re going to get an atrocious refresh rate.
@BC_Mike is correct that 32K pixels per chain is a practical limit, and to get that many, you already have to make visual compromises which I do for my 384x256 display on

Purists will say that 32K pixels on one channel is more than what you should run, and ultimately they are right. You can see the settings I use to push that many pixels, here:

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It could work, but it is definitely pushing it.

If you use three chains (you absolutely want that for these number of displays), you’ll have about 33 panels on one chain; and if they are 16x32 you get theoretically in the order of 150Hz refresh at 11 bit per color and --led-gpio-slowdown=3. This might be also be slightly higher depending on the LED multiplexing (often, these 16x32 panels have a different multiplexing for outside (=brigther) use).

However, there might be a number of issues: the clock is passed from panel to panel, and depending on the implementation of the panels, there might be a large skew of timing between the data (that passes through a shift register and is deleayed a fraction of the clock cycle after each panel) and the clock (which might or might not be delayed in each panel).

So it will be an interesting experiment, but expect issues, which partially depends on the partciular hardware of the panels you got.

Another issue is that long chains might elevate the problems of jitter in the processing: data is clocked out from user-space, so issues with running out of first level cache could create visible brightness glitches (typically well contained by using --led-limit-refresh to even the refresh).

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Thanks BC_Mike for the info😊

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Thanks David Thacher for the info😊

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Thanks Marc Merlin for the info

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Thanks Henner Zeller for the info😊