Hi again,
I am happy to discuss the matter of controlling big matrixes.
And you guys, do not worry about English, you can still answer me in German. Google translator helps us
in both directions, even if you might have objections against some syntax. Just try to keep your language simple, please.
Back to you HBB:
Recently I have managed to receive Jinx! TPM2.net protocoll over Wifi for a 64x32 matrix without loss of packets. Wifi is not reliable, but it is the only way, I can do it with my knowledge and resonably cheap hardware.
If controllers for single LED-strip are expensive, then I can imagine the price of multichanel controllers. I do not think the synchronization is much of a problem. The controllers send the electrical signals to the srips imediatelly when they receive the protocolled data. But I will see.
In the begining of my playing with LED-strips I built a cheap (Arduino nano) controller, that converts Glediator protocoll to the electrical signal for LED-strip. I am still using it. It is physically attached to the LED-matrix. It has many advantages.
1. it costs peanuts.
2. it is safe for the LEDs. If something happens with the cables, the sending computer or the power supply for the communication, the LEDs do not receive anything. All the protecting components (capacitor and resistor) are just calculated for the (very) short distance from nano to the strip.
3. the timing or the voltage of the electrical signal is not an issue.
4. There is no obstacle in speed. The LED-signal is about 800kHz, while Glediator protocoll uses 1000 kBaud. Everything is just delayed by one frame. If you would use the same for each segment of your complete huge matrix display, it is perfectly synchronized.
5. The RS232 or whatever serial protocoll is very well accepted by the industry and is developed for "larger" distances, which is certainly not the LED-driving signal. If I would need to use larger distance, I can easily find circuits to safely transfer the serial data levels (+12V/-12V) over suitable cables.
6. Many microcontrollers (like ESP32) have UART that uses some kind of DMA technique, so that you are not depending on the LED-library's implementation of SPI or whatever (like FastLED.show)
7. The only thing I need to do in the few fancy Arduino examples is to change FastLED.show to my SendGlediator() . This is of coarse not completely true for ex. Adafruit matrix.show. Adafruit are purists, that managed to hide the LED array for the users, so that controlling it is academicaly safer, but much slower, since you have to read it pixel by pixel instead of using memcpy()
The list could be longer. But the most important thing is, that my LED-matrix survived several years of harsh development. Yes, I burned a few strips' first LED in the beginning, so I made my lesson.
With all that said, I am still looking for a solution, where Raspberry accepts TPM2.net over LAN cable.