Not Nixie related but might be of interest. Large RGB Matrix

[5-ht]

Not Nixie related but seems interesting and kind of tempting at this price with free shipping.

Looking to build a large dot-matrix clock?
These modules are about 6 x 6.6 inches with a 96x108 RGB matrix.
I have no idea of what one might need to drive these. They originally worked daisy-chained to an external controller.

I have no connection with this auction but have purchased from this seller in the past with good results.

See: http://www.ebay.com/itm/292279391807

Mark

[gregebert]

I didn't see any pinout data on Barco's website, so unless you can find a controller it's going to be difficult to drive it.

Now, if you do manage to get it running, it can double as a space-heater or a toaster. Specs say each panel is 230 watts.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.....

Looks like these are used for outdoor billboards, viewscreens at sports arenas, etc.  Lots of them.......

[Robert L]

Sent a query to Barco a couple of days ago... so far no response.

[gregebert]

I guess you're at the mercy of whoever receives the request. Once upon a time you could just pick up the phone, ask for field engineering, and they would gladly gab with you and answer questions even if you were interested in an older product because they simply wanted to help and didn't have a Wall Street bean-counter monitoring every thing they did. I miss those days. 

[Mike Harrison]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2017 16:24:09 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>
>Sent a query to Barco a couple of days ago... so far no response.

I wouldn't hold your breath.
I found an installation manual but not much useful info
ftp://ftp.folsom.com/Products/LED/Manuals/NX%20Rental%20installation.pdf

Super cheap though, and will probably be better quality than the cheap Chinese panels, though maybe
quite old. If they weren't in the US I'd get some to play with.

I think you're going to need to pull it apart & reverse engineer it - could be you could seperate
the led_driver section from whatever handles the panel-to-panel comms - may be easier to figure out
how to drive.

If anyone gets some I'd be interested in getting hold of one to look at- postage on one shoudn't be
too bad.

[John Rehwinkel]

> Super cheap though, and will probably be better quality than the cheap Chinese panels, though maybe
> quite old. If they weren't in the US I'd get some to play with.
>
> I think you're going to need to pull it apart & reverse engineer it - could be you could seperate
> the led_driver section from whatever handles the panel-to-panel comms - may be easier to figure out
> how to drive.

Wow, those were cheap. I'm sorry I missed them. The seller is about 15 miles from here, too. I would have cheerfully tried to reverse engineer them.

- John