P10(1R) Dot Matrix Display Interfacing With Arduino

 The dot matrix display that I have is P10(1R), 

Don’t worry about the upper section being empty, I later did program it to show text 

Actual display Board	Back Part [ PCB ]

It is P10(1R)-DP4 536-V5 Type 

The closest datasheet that I got for this is http://www.hlec.com.cn/userfiles/files/20120928014657.pdf 

These Large Display Boards have multiple Units cascaded together. I call each unit a Panel 

So Multiple Panels being chained together make a large display board 

Here is how my board and it panels are chained to form the large display 

The Blue colored Double lines are the long jumper wires that chains each panel with another 

Now here is more info related to the Display 

• Pixels per Panel is 32 (W)*16 (H) dots 

• The board has 4 panels per chain 

• The board has 2 chains 

• So 8 panels in total 

• So the total resolution is 320(w)x32(h) 

The pin interface is called HUB12, I have interfaced it with Arduino Uno 

Marking on the PCB	HUB12 pinout at the datasheet	Arduino Uno Pin Interface

Here is where How you should connect Arduino Uno with the Display 

So you connect the Arduino Uno to the HUB12 interface to the panel located at [0,0] position 

Notice Panel 4 is chained to Panel 5 HUB12 interface by long jumper wire 

The Connection between HUB12 and Arduino Uno is 

Ref: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0045/8932/files/DMDCON_DMDConnector.pdf?100730 

HUB12	Arduino
nOE	9
A	6
B	7
CLK	13
SCLK	8
R_DATA	11
GND	GND

MOST Important: Use an External power Supply like this to power up the Display Board. Arduino is just for applying the logic. Don’t ever think it can power up the display board 😄

Now let’s prepare the Arduino Code 

At first, we have to install the libraries 

1. Download this library https://github.com/freetronics/DMD 

Extract it and copy it to the Arduino libraries folder for example in my case   “/home/ayx/Arduino/libraries” 

     

     2. Open Arduino IDE and Install “TImerOne” Library using the “manage libraries” option 

Open Dmd_demo.ino sketch 

Change The code snippet like this 

//SPI.h must be included as DMD is written by SPI #include <SPI.h>        #include <DMD.h>        #include <TimerOne.h>   #include "SystemFont5x7.h" #include "Arial_black_16.h" #include "Droid_Sans_24.h" //Fire up the DMD library as dmd #define DISPLAYS_ACROSS 4 #define DISPLAYS_DOWN 2 DMD dmd(DISPLAYS_ACROSS, DISPLAYS_DOWN); void ScanDMD() {   dmd.scanDisplayBySPI(); } void setup(void) {   Timer1.initialize( 3000 );//period in microseconds to call ScanDMD.   Timer1.attachInterrupt( ScanDMD );//attach the Timer1 interrupt to scan   dmd.clearScreen( true );    //clearthe DMD pixels held in RAM   dmd.selectFont(Droid_Sans_24); } void loop(void) {   dmd.clearScreen( true );   delay(2000);   dmd.drawMarquee("Scrolling Text",14,(32*DISPLAYS_ACROSS)-1,6); }

Compile it and upload you, if everything is okay then you will see a large text scrolling