Hi, I am planning to build a fixture with 10 P5 LED panels (HUB75). To avoid the cost of a Novastar (even the entry-level sending card would be just as much as the panels themselves) I thought of using a Raspberry Pie 4 (with the additional benefit of being able to use that for other purposes aswell.
Sending the video from the PC would be done using the LMCSHD software to send a screen recording to the RPi.
Do you guys think this would be possible? Getting the Novastar would be a much cleaner solution, but considering I’ll be using just 0.02 Million of it’s 1.3 Million pixel capacity, it feels so overkill…
Thank you for the quick info! I’ll have a look into it
One more (beginner) question that I couldn’t really find an info for: The panels I want to use have HUB75-D connectors. Most of the receiver boards are only available as HUB75-E connectors (so same connector with different pinout).
Do these boards automatically switch their output or can you configure it? Or do I need to search for a HUB75-D specific board?
D should refer to having 4 (ABCD) address lines, E to 5. Usually panels that are 32 pixels high need 4 lines, 64 pixels 5 lines. Driver boards should handle both
The adapter board is what most people skip — HUB75 panels run on 5V logic and Pi GPIO is 3.3V, so going direct usually gives you flickering garbage across the whole chain. An active-3 adapter with level shifters sorts that out and lets you run three parallel chains, which is how you’d sensibly split 10 panels. Full breakdown at Raspberry Pi 4 vs Novastar for HUB75 LED Panels: Driving 10× P5 Panels on a Budget - Port & Patch
While this is partly true, the importance of using an adapter is greatly exaggerated. First, most modern LED panel drivers has logic levels compatible with 3.3V signals. Second, since the driver chips are connected in series, issues related to 3.3V logic levels can only occur at the very first chip in the chain. All subsequent chips receive a signal that has been regenerated by the preceding driver and since the driver is powered by 5V, the signal it passes along the chain is at the 5V level rather than the original 3.3V.
From a practical standpoint—as the author of a library for HUB75 panels running on 3.3V controllers—I have operated dozens of different panels, and I needed to use 3.3V-to-5V converters in only two instances.
