Does anyone know a source to buy a 64x64 5mm pitch display that works with Teensy and SmartLED shield? I’ve tried looking on alibaba and google but with no success. I only found a 3mm pitch on SparkFun. I’m working on something that is portable so that’s what I don’t want to deal with chaining at least for now.
Largest P5 I’ve seen is 32x64. You’ll need one ribbon to link two panels.
What specifically do you not like about chaining for portability? There might be some way to work around it.
Thank you for all your responses you’ve been very helpful. I’m basically trying to have a screen run a modified version of your GIF player that is battery powered. I believe these panels draw 3-4A at peak so I’d have to bring multiple batteries as these anker power banks only have a peak rating of 3A for 5V… Is it ok to connect one panel/Teensy to one battery and the second panel to a second battery? Keep in mind the data for the two panels would be chained. I’m very new to learning about circuits so I’m not sure if this would cause problems. I’d want to know before buying another 1-3 panels. Thanks.
Keep the grounds between the two panels connected if you use two separate batteries. They will already be connected through the ribbon cable, but that’s a thin wire, better to connect them with something closer to the thickness of the power cables.
You may find one of the USB packs supply enough current, depending on the content and brightness you’re displaying. Make sure you use a good quality cable between the pack and the panels. A lot of USB cables use thin wires. Use a multimeter to see how low the voltage is dropping when you’re displaying your brightest content.
If you need to use multiple packs, connecting one to each panel seems easier than trying to connect two to both panels. Just connect the grounds as I mentioned above.
@dennyhle if USB battery packs don’t give you enough amps, use a lipo and a voltage converter like Marc's Blog: arduino - EDM Party Shirt powered with FastLED::NeoMatrix and Adafruit::GFX, plus 160Wh (10Ah/4S) worth of lipos
Specifically this picture http://marc.merlins.org/Pix/index.php?album=Electronics/Arduino/20180529_ESP8266_and_FastLED_NeoMatrix_Powered_Shirt_and_Pants&img=102_20180529_ESP8266_and_FastLED_NeoMatrix_Powered_Shirt_and_Pants.jpg
Thank you everyone for the advice. I was able to chain two 32x64 panels together running for several hours on a 26000mAh Anker battery. There are problems with a full bright white screen but I don’t need that for my purposes and it has been fine.
So @dennyhle what power system did you use, how many amps was your panel using, and how long did it last?
I used a 13,000 mAh Anker PowerCore 13000 battery with two USB ports. The specifications say max 5V=3A each port. I had the two LED matrices on one port and the Teensy/SmartLED shield on the other. I decreased the brightness to 60 and it was plenty bright for the music festival. I ran the animation continuously one day and it ran well over 12 hours…either 16 or 18 hours I forget. My animations had a lot of deadspace though, I would say less than half of the LEDs are on at any given time.
As for how many amps my panel was using…I did measure it one day and to tell you the truth I forgot what it was but it was well under 2A with my brightness/animation style. I think it was even under 1A. I’ll try to do it again at some point.
Yeah, mine runs at 50 inside clubs because it’s too bright otherwise, but at EDC/Burning Man, I run it at 100% because everything is bright 
That works great. Stupid question: with the USB packs, they often have a problem where they recharge slower than they discharge (I have a 99Wh one that takes 24H to recharge). My setup uses lipos so I can recharge them in 1H given the right charger (in real life, I do it in 3H because there is no reason to fast charge them), but that means I use a special charger, balance connector, etc… (and sometimes have a chat with airport security )
That’s quite good. It’s a bit like my shirt too, although my shirt has 3X more pixels than you (front and back), so I can see how actually you need very little power.
The part that impressed me more was how your refresh rate was good enough that it looked good on all my pictures and video. I never saw a rescan bar. I’m assuming you’re likely able to run beyond 120Hz.
So, for next year you can double it and do front and rear panels so that it can be seen from both sides
But again, great job.
And I’ll post a slightly off topic bit while we’re at it, the pixel tunnel (LED strip based), was really cool (hard to explain the sound you’d feel and that was moving around you while you were inside):
or short version:
