Bricked panels

[IngmarStein]

I've bricked two panels while using ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA.

This is the last thing they showed (after that, they never turned back on):

Two questions regarding that:

• is this pattern some kind of error code or just random?
• what usage could have caused this? Could writing too quickly have overwhelmed the panel? The panels were hot when they died.

[board707]

I've bricked two panels while using ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA.

Could you provide some additional details? What is the panel type, what about a drivers on it?

I never heard that HUB75 panels could be "bricked" by software, only by incorrect connection.

[board707]

initializing FM6124 driver

Perhaps the name of the mode in the library is not entirely correct. As far I know, the drivers FM6124 and 6126 are different things.

I can't speak for this library, as I don't know ESP32 chips well. I work with STM32.
When testing different hub panels, I worked with both FM6124 and FM6126. The FM6124 driver seemed like a regular serial driver to me, in my code it is launched without additional configuration. The FM6126 driver requires loading the configuration registers before use, so I developed a separate class for a such panels in my STM32 library.

[IngmarStein]

This library uses the same initialization method for FM6124 and FM6126A: https://github.com/mrcodetastic/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA/blob/master/src/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-leddrivers.cpp#L27-L29.

But this made me curious and looking at the panel, I can see that the actual driver is a ICN2037, the FM6126A is just what Tidbyt used in their published firmware. It doesn't matter for this firmware because this results in the same code path.

[board707]

I can see that the actual driver is a ICN2037

It is always a good idea to see what chips are actually installed on the panel, since the descriptions and even labels on the matrices are often incorrect.
As far I know ICN2037 is a standard serial driver, that doesn't need any pre-configuration to work. Could you try to run it without any specific driver settings?

[IngmarStein]

HUB75_I2S_CFG::SHIFTREG does the same: the panels remain dark.

Given that neither of the two original Tidbyt ICN2037-using panels nor a spare Waveshare with FM6124C as driver work, I assume that some part of the two Tidbyt boards is kaput and I'm searching for drop-in replacement. Thanks for your help!

[board707]

HUB75_I2S_CFG::SHIFTREG

Note that this setting is for line driver, it has nothing to do with main led driver like FM6126 or ICN2037.

[IngmarStein]

So I connected the panel to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W where they work flawlessly. Maybe the panels drew too much power from the poor ESP32. Sorry for the noise!