LED Display

[Craig MacIntyre]

Anyone have a suggestion for an outdoor LED display?  Reached a point where TV's just don't cut it.  Impossible to read when needed from a distance for various things.

I can do a clock but I really like the Public display stuff better.  I would love to have something for a results kiosk too and maybe some other things.  At the end of the day I essentially want to replace the ability of a monitor

[Patrick W]

so there's basically two tiers: 

1) a clock display like the finished results one...  They're effectively a clock but can display results.  Very user friendly.

2) a full on led display.  They're basically the same tech as a jumbotron or the big ad screens or what you see in backgrounds/floors at concerts, and because of that are modular and infinitely configurable, but break down into generally the same components:  a sending card, receiving card(s), and led matrixes.  All the displays you see at sports events, track meets, etc use basically identical hardware, its just packaged differently.  There's a bit of a steep learning curve, but in the end the whole system basically acts like a huge computer screen - you plug into the sending card with a DVI or HDMI cable and it just displays whatever you show on your screen.

Because they're infinitely configurable there's lots of different sizes, pixel densities so there's a lot of options when shopping, but you can also reconfigure them as needed -  I have boards that I reconfigure as one big panel, or 2 or 3 smaller ones depending on the event's needs...  Because they're outdoor, they need to be bright, so they do gobble power.... you can mitigate that by using more blacks and less white in what you're displaying...  Bright white takes a lot more power to display than black, because the LEDs aren't powered for black lol.  

Once you get the hang of them they can be fun, and you can do a lot of things.... but I don't generally recommend it unless you're at least a bit techie because of the learning curve.  (sorry lots of rambling lol)

[Craig MacIntyre]

Thanks Patrick ... any chance you can point me to some options?

[Christopher Regan]

Hi Craig

This might be worthwhile to watch. I've been looking into them and have looked at panels from aliexpress but haven't bit the bullet yet.
https://szledworld.com/how-to-build-led-screen.html