16x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 6mm Pitch - Cascadable

If you love to play around with dot matrix displays and enjoy the intricacies of multiplexing various rows and columns to create imagery, text or even creative facial gestures for robots, then you’re going to love this massive 16x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel. This awesome panel offers a full suite of 512 RGB LED’s with 6mm Pitch, and can also be Cascaded with more panels to create extra-large dot matrix LED Displays for really impressive projects.

Compared to the MAX7219 chips that are utilised for the smaller, lower power 8x8 dot matrix displays that we’re all quite fond of, these larger RGB LED Displays use the higher power SH74HC based shift registers to deliver a good amount of power for a striking level of brightness. This, in addition to the 6mm pitch of the LED units, ensure that this display will be more than just easy to see, but actually difficult to ignore.

In terms of usability, this matrix display is relatively easy to operate with the connection diagram included in the images above, and features two IDC connectors on the back – one for DATA_IN and one for DATA_OUT. The DATA_IN port is where you would typically connect a microcontroller, while the DATA_OUT port is the one that’s used to cascade these panels. However, it’s important (and kind of unfortunate) to note that that some Arduino Boards will not be fast enough to handle multiple panels simultaneously, so if you are eager to cascade four or more of these panels together to create extra-large matrix panels, you will need to utilise a faster MCU, or consider getting one of the larger single units such as the 32x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel or the 32x64 RGB LED Matrix Panel instead.

Typical Applications for these 16x32 Cascadable RGB LED Matrix Panels:

No matter how many times we see it in action, we simply love the way that simple LED’s can create decent quality imagery when utilised in a dot matrix format, and the incredible range of use cases that this format allows Makers to enjoy. However, if we were to choose just a few projects that we’re particularly fond of building with displays like the 16x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel, it would have to be the following three:

• Creating a multi-purpose display with a digital gyroscope, to switch between different modes as the display is rotated between 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° orientations, allowing you to quickly swap between different sets of data, RSS feeds, social media updates, or even games like Tetris, depending on the orientation that the display is rotated to.
• Developing a random pixel landscape generator, using earthy tones of greens and browns to generate land, and then blues and white to create the skies and clouds hanging above, resulting in some breath-taking (and also some disastrous) landscapes for us to enjoy (or laugh at).
• Making a fun interactive clock that typically displays time, but can switch to different modes depending on the time of day, in response to voice commands, or as a reaction to a variety of different inputs from viewers.

While listing these three fantastic use cases for matrix display panels, we found it difficult to choose just three, as there are realistically a near-endless number of different ways in which these panels can be used. So start thinking of the exciting ways that you can use these panels to enhance your life, home or working space, and think of how you can take advantage of the full 512 individually addressable RGB LED’s in your next major project.

Additional Resources:

• This is the official DFRobot 16x32 RGB LED Matrix Display Wiki, comprising of details about the display panel, connection diagram for hooking it up to an Arduino, as well as useful code examples to help you get started with your new and exciting RGB LED Panel.

As self-proclaimed “Robo-holics”, DFRobot is a company comprised of over 100 staff members, of which 30% are engineers who love to build robots. It was started in 2008 with the goal of embracing and promoting open-source hardware, with a core focus on Arduino, Raspberry Pi and their very own LattePanda development boards. Since then, DFRobot have manufactured over 1300 unique modules, sensors and components that all work together and complement each other, allowing users like us to enjoy a full spectrum of cutting edge robotics and electronics without having to pay premium prices.

With the primary goal of developing and manufacturing great quality products, while making them accessible to as many people as possible, DFRobot are rapidly becoming one of the most common-place brands in the world of open-source robotics and electronics. With more than 1300 products developed in-house, and an impressive range of different categories and specialisations, there are few brands in the world who can compete in terms of quality, accessibility and genuine innovation.