How to repair LED matrix panels.

A few years ago I had two P3 LED panels with missing LED's in the corners due to being beaten up in shipping.  Recently it happened again, this time three P5 LED panels had missing LED's from shipping abuse.  In another case I bought 18 P6 panels that were likely bad before they were shipped.  Every panel had bad LED's, some had as many as 30 LED's that were not working out of the 1024 on the panels. At first I repaired them to where 1-5 LED's were still out, but then with a better soldering iron tip I was able to get them to 100% working.

I want to show you how to repair minor problems with LED matrix panels.  Usually it is a corner LED that is loose or missing.  You can buy reels of 100 LED's for about $6.  In the P3 and P5 panels they were 2121 LED's.  The P6 panels had 3535 LED's.

First remove the almost invisible screws near the missing LED.  Then lift the panel screen and make two small cuts in the screen as can be seen in the next picture.  Remove the cut out piece. Set the screen back down.  Clean up the solder pads, leave some solder on them.

Then slide in the new LED into place with the panel powered up so you can see if it is oriented correctly by it lighting up.  Then, while holding the LED down with a small screwdriver, solder the two visible pins into place.  Next, lift the screen and prop it up.  Solder the two pins that you cannot see by "feel".  Then test the screen to make sure that it is working now.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs!

I have just finished my latest book "LED Sign Projects".  I am not happy with the cover.  Besides being off center its kind of redundant.  LOL.  Also they used to add a page saying it is a proof.  But if you were happy with it you could remove that page and sell it.  Now they have "Not for Resale" on the cover!  The proof costs about the same as buying one so why do that to it!?!?

Another cover picture was "Signs, SIgns Everywhere Signs" after the song from the 70's.  But it lacked contrast.  Most cameras do not take accurate pictures of LED signs.  Would this make a better cover image??

I just completed one of my biggest signs ever.  Its 5 feet wide and 3 feet tall, the equivalent of a 70" TV screen.  There are 30 of the 32 by 64 P5 LED panels for over 30,000 pixels.  The resulting image is awesome!  Unfortunatly the pictures did not turn out well.  

This picture was taken before I put the top and bottom aluminum rails on it.  I use Steel L brackets at the corners to reinforce them and the mounting eyelet goes into that steel L Bracket as well.  So most of the weight is carried by the vertical aluminum rails.  I use external power supplies that way it is almost flush to the wall when it is hung up.

Here are some of my other LED signs from the back side.  This is similar to the one shown above.  Note that the panel joiners are all 3D printed.  I tried 3D printing the edges but they broke too easily so I use 3/4 inch L aluminum extrusions found at most hardware stores.

This is a water resistant version featureing 4x5 or the 32x32 pixel P6 LED panels.

Using LED strips to light up a Street sign instead of fluorescent bulbs

A couple of years ago I replaced the non-working five foot fluorescent bulbs in our church street sign with LED's.  However the horizontal strips were visable and became annoying.  So I came up with the idea of using edge lighting.  The LED strips would be on a metal surface so they would be less likely to overheat and burn out.  

I had some 130 per Meter or 36 per foot 2835 SMD LED strips.  They were 10 Meters or 394 inches or 32.8 Feet in length.  They are soft white and run off 12 Volts.  The total power is 90 watts per 10 meters length.  I used two of these strips for four laps around the inside of the sign.  I think if I was to buy them I would get bright white LED's instead.

This is the results as seen at night.  No more horizontal strips of lights!  It does dim a little in the center but it dure looks better.  Now to get a bigger LED sign!