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matrix_portal_gol
Conway's Game of Life, Boids, a clock, and other simple simulations for the Adafruit matrix portal with the 64x32 led display.
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ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA
An Adafruit GFX Compatible Library for the ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 to drive HUB75 LED matrix panels using DMA for high refresh rates. Supports panel chaining.
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rpi-rgb-led-matrix
Controlling up to three chains of 64x64, 32x32, 16x32 or similar RGB LED displays using Raspberry Pi GPIO
As promised here is the source code, PCB Gerber file and the STEP files for the case: https://github.com/hanneslinder/esp-pixel-matrix
Hope you find it useful and don't be too harsh with the code quality as this was my first time writing C++ :)
I bought the KRUSH Flip Clock after seeing it at CES2016 and pulled out its silly cloud-controlled innards so I can write whatever I want to the display over rs485.
https://github.com/dmd/clack
Adafruit offers a starter kit with a microcontroller, 64x32 led matrix, and some other doodads for ~$70 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4812). It's really easy to tinker with. I made a clock that does some crappy visualizations and open sourced it here: https://github.com/kruffin/matrix_portal_gol It actually looks a lot like this Tidbyt (a box with a dot matrix).
The only thing it doesn't have is a RTC, so I just polled a time server every so often.
These displays make for very approachable projects. Check out this repo if you're interested in controlling them from a raspberry pi. Adafruit and others sell a variety of sizes.
https://github.com/hzeller/rpi-rgb-led-matrix
They can run video too (obviously quite pixelated but good for certain styles, eg manga/comic imagery) and there are examples online of projects such as an album cover display that syncs with your music.
Once tip: ensure you've got a good power supply if using one of the bigger 64x64 versions especially if you have it on bright with most/all pixels lit at the same time.