This is an early picture when I didn’t have ribbon cables that were long enough.
It feels like the ribbon cables they give you are designed so that the panels are in a long string side by side, or if they are on top of one another, every other panel underneath must be rotated upside down.
Sure, you an remap all the pixels in software, but even NeoMatrix does not handle panels being upside down, it’s non trivial and generally annoying.
Am I correct in understanding that the SmartMatrix panel layout options are designed to handle how you can chain panels differently and cable in zig-zag, but that all the panels must always face up in the same direction?
If so, am I also correct that basically those too short cables that come with the panels I have (and I now have a stack of them) are all useless unless I chain panels side by side, which I don’t?
Here is a half funny example of what I had to do early on until I received my shipment of longer cables to connect two “too short” cables together:
The main branch of SmartMatrix Library has option SMARTMATRIX_OPTIONS_C_SHAPE_STACKING. It’s not supported on the teensylc branch, at least not for the ESP32. There’s no technical limitation, I just haven’t written the code yet to figure out what row to pull from Layers and put in the tempRow buffer, and to reverse the order of pixels when loading in the buffer.
I’d order a spool of ribbon cable and connectors, and maybe a tool to crimp them, and make the exact length you want. You can crimp them with a vise or vise-like tool. Pliers won’t work as the pressure is too uneven.
If so, am I also correct that basically those too short cables that come with the panels I have (and I now have a stack of them) are all useless unless I chain panels side by side, which I don’t?
I guess so. Suppliers also do things like include a power cable with two ends, and include only half the cables for the panels you have, but the two ends aren’t long enough to extend to two panels (usually for P6 which have longer distance between panels).
thanks for confirming this. While it would have been nice to be able to reuse existing cables that come with the panels, it’s not worth it if it introduces yet another buffer to do the rotation, or doesn’t work on ESP32.
I’d say efforts are better spent elsewhere, including getting/making new cables
