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Blog LED ticker: BeagleBone Black & multiple Adafruit 8x8 displays
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Engagement
  • Author Author: fustini
  • Date Created: 30 Dec 2013 1:31 AM Date Created
  • Views 1596 views
  • Likes 2 likes
  • Comments 5 comments
  • python
  • i2c
  • beaglebone_black
  • bbb
  • BeagleBone
  • led_matrix
  • bb_black
  • adafruit
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LED ticker: BeagleBone Black & multiple Adafruit 8x8 displays

fustini
fustini
30 Dec 2013

imageimage

image

I previously wrote about using the 8x8 LED matrix with the BeagleBone Black and visualizing Facebook notifications on the matrix.  Adafruit has an interesting tutorial about using multiple 8x8 LED matrix displays together:

 

Animating Multiple LED Backpacks

http://learn.adafruit.com/animating-multiple-led-backpacks

image

The above tutorial was written for the Arduino , but I wanted to control multiple Adafruit 8x8 LED matrix displays with the BeagleBone Black .  I lucked out when I found Matt Hassel's LED Stock Ticker project for the Raspberry Pi .  He built upon the Adafruit Python library for the 8x8 matrix and wrote new code to handle scrolling text across multiple displays.  I was able to get Matt Hassel's Python code to run on the BeagleBone Black, and I reworked bi-color matrix code to work with the single color 8x8 matrix displays like my red model.  Here is my GitHub repo for all of my Adafruit LED backpack (8x8 matrix & 7-segment) projects for the BBB:

 

GitHub: pdp7 / beaglebackpack

https://github.com/pdp7/beaglebackpack


A Python program, ticker.py, will scroll a message across the matrix displays.  Before running it, follow Adafruit's instructions to install their Adafruit-BeagleBone-IO-Python library:


Installation on Angstrom | Setting up IO Python Library on BeagleBone Black | Adafruit Learning System

http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-io-python-library-on-beaglebone-black/installation

 

Next follow these instructions on the BeagleBone:

cd $HOME

git clone git://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code.git

git clone git://github.com/pdp7/beaglebackpack.git

cd beaglebackpack

bash ./ticker.sh -r "Happy Holidays 2013"

 

The message should then scroll across the two displays:

 

Happy Holidays: BeagleBone Black LED ticker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy1r8esEK6E

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Cheers,

Drew

http://twitter.com/pdp7

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Top Comments

  • shabaz
    shabaz over 11 years ago +3
    Hi Drew, Very nice display! but I still see a faint blue glow emitted through the beagleboard.org card
  • morgaine
    morgaine over 11 years ago +2
    Good project, Drew, and it will probably serve as a launching pad from which others will derive theirs. PS. You do know that the AM3359 was endowed with two PRUs specifically to power the two 8x8 LED panels…
  • morgaine
    morgaine over 11 years ago in reply to shabaz +1
    Haha, awesome comment. I must be the only BBB fan who likes those wall-scorching blue LEDs. Perhaps it's related to Vega and Sirius being two of my favourite stars ... Morgaine.
  • fustini
    fustini over 11 years ago in reply to DAB

    that's a good idea! makes me impenitent for next October - but of course I don't want to fast forward through Summer when it was 3 deg F last night image

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  • DAB
    DAB over 11 years ago

    Hi Drew,

     

    Very neat idea.

    You have me thinking about all of the display animation you could do with the blue LEDs in the skull.

    You could really freak some people out with a sonar tracker to have the eyes follow people as they walk by.

     

    DAB

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  • morgaine
    morgaine over 11 years ago

    Good project, Drew, and it will probably serve as a launching pad from which others will derive theirs. image

     

    PS. You do know that the AM3359 was endowed with two PRUs specifically to power the two 8x8 LED panels in skull eyesockets, right?  The business requirements were quite clear and made it inevitable. image

     

    Morgaine.

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  • morgaine
    morgaine over 11 years ago in reply to shabaz

    Haha, awesome comment. image

     

    I must be the only BBB fan who likes those wall-scorching blue LEDs.  Perhaps it's related to Vega and Sirius being two of my favourite stars ... image

     

    Morgaine.

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  • shabaz
    shabaz over 11 years ago

    Hi Drew,

     

    Very nice display! but I still see a faint blue glow emitted through the beagleboard.org card image

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