144*144 RGB LED Matrix Gameboy

[heydude85]

sage!!

[Freiheitvlc]

Just a question:

Its seens that you are doing 2 scans at the same time, (2 column scan?)

so, only 1 led at a time per row is lit at the same time (3 leds to form a RGB led).

But 1 entire row, in the worst case, is entirely lit... that makes 72*3 = 216 leds

2 scans, top and bottom - 216*2 = 432

lets suppose that each led uses 20mA. 432 * 20 = 8640mA

9A +/- to feed this monster??? :O

I suppose you are using 5v

5 * 9A = 45watt??

Correct me if i'm wrong. thanks

[mentebizarra]

Awesome, How much did this cost to you? considering the huge number of RGB LED

[viciousswaggetv]

teach me please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!

[richkawaiipikachu]

I love the music, What is it?

[ghhhks]

@richkawaiipikachu Purple motion - Starshine

[fede142857]

Are you insane? Over 20,000 RGB LEDs?

OK, you are insanely insane because the power consumption of this is 5kw, not 1

And it takes 15 seconds to create the full picture :(

So, what's its size? 32 inches?

[racerxdl]

You will release the schematic or/and fpga core?

[fnord64]

UNPOSSIBLE. :O

Really cool.

btw how do you switch the games so fast? Do you also use the FPGA to deliver ROM data to the Gameboy and switch during reset?

Or did you just cut the video? :-)

[richkawaiipikachu]

@fnord64 The answer is obvious.

Multiple footage spliced together with video editing software so we as the viewer don't have to wait for the Game Paks to be swapped.

Simple as pie really

[maestrodesipalki]

sos un fenomeno te tendrria que chupar la pija!!

[kawaiifreak860]

I would totally have gotten some extra's to meet the full 160x144 if I were you then moded the case of the Gameboy for it. :3

Then I could fool people into thinking it's a Release of the gameboy and say it's the new improved "SUPER MEGA ULTRA LED BOY!" made for those who aren't Newfags.

[jipje44]

looks amazing!

are those lines normal or caused by the camera?

[legokidnaruto]

what provides your 30bit pwm???

[bestamerica]

'

this gameboy do not have a output A / V to the TV

[bibinson]

@bestamerica Yes you are correct

do you want a medal?

[bleedscarlet]

that's intense!

108 independent controls per board? so there's a total of 21k transistors in that thing?! or is it powered directly from your board?

Very nice! what is 30 bit PWM? is that the resolution of voltage? if so, that's insanely high haha.

[Decidetto]

Coool! 4 boards to go till the full resolution!

And what an awesome music! Makes me think of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 =)

[4hodmt]

@Decidetto Purple Motion - Starshine (original 1993 version, search for "strshine.s3m")

[Decidetto]

@4hodmt Thanks!

[MPSecare]

how big is it?

[HoneycombAgent]

Problem with this display is, a real GBC screen is 160*144. You may wish to improve on this giant LED.

[ngtflyer]

Really nice work, and I too commend you on using Purple Motion's music!

[Minifig666]

A portable full sized LED Boy anyone?

[bostjan64]

Quite a feat! Have you considered connecting this matrix to other 144 x 160 pixel handheld systems like Sega Game Gear? Which dimensions are the boards? Are they 48 x 36? In that case, four more boards would give you 32 x 144 extra pizels, no? Did you order the boards or make them yourself?

[finalfantasyiscool22]

AWESOME!!!! =D

[wildsurfer48]

1KW !?!?!?!?!? thats a whole lotta amps 0_0

how many volt for each led?

[xxflinkxx]

@wildsurfer48 If they are standard type LEDS then each one can handle up to 1.5v, but run at 1.2v typical. LEDs run at a typical 10mA-20mA current consumption. Do some math and you get about 1KW of power consumption on a full brightness white screen(white because all the LEDs are lit-R,G,B)

[lm3909n]

I bet the contast ratio is AWESOME!!!!!

Would love to see if someone could make an OLED modded Gameboy (actually replacing the screen itself) ...

[IllegalMavamaarten]

1 kw WTF !

[legokidnaruto]

@IllegalMavamaarten well there ARE 12996 RGB LED's but led's dont draw that much power but eventually it does add up prettey quickly...

[3hplusplus]

nice

[ElectricG]

this is excellent

[POTSla]

I want to see that PCB - 1kW power consumption O_o

[vdub350]

@POTSla not with multiplexing. Much less power probably.

[sofkjafar]

Good work, i am jealous now ;) i have been wanting to make an LED pixel and a 3d LED cube, but no time :(

good job.

[feedthebear51]

20736 leds? Wow! Congratulation!

[NinetyDeathsInHeaven]

looks like hes just using roms and projects it to the leds from his computer

[macvalle]

Goes without saying that that one is totally INSANE! I'm planning of purchasing 20 pcs of 8x8 RGB LED modules. If I only could get those for a reasonable price...

[lebasson]

Impressive stuff man, getting so much custom hardware to work :) And I applaud the usage of Purple Motion tunes :)

How are you running gameboy gfx, from a gameboy itself?

[kevtris]

yes there is a real live colour gameboy connected to the FPGA board which is driving the 12 LED boards. No PC was used during operation, it is entirely stand-alone.

[geoffreyefloyd]

how big/tall is that thing and how much did all the leds cost?

[triangletrexx]

that is so cool.

[JustChrisLTD]

I'd play Pokemon to this ^_^d

[xxflinkxx]

what made you think it was a good idea running 8 bit color on a true display? i say true because lcds the lamp is always on and blocks light, lacking blacks, plasmas the color fades, why dont they make LED TVs? OLED are no better as the materiel degrades rapidly over time. I say, even thought resolution isnt all that great, run some 32 bit color and see what you get =)

[HLSDK]

this is 24 bit color

[xxflinkxx]

it may run at 24bit color, but the point is that the game boy game's color pallet is only 8-bit(i think) O.o so run a source that uses a 24-bit color pallet to get the full spectrum instead of just a few gradients of greens, browns, and such

[Evilhamster95]

But.. They DO make LED tvs!

[xxflinkxx]

only in football stadiums and such, the marketed "LED" tvs are simply LED back lights, with LCD displays. They dont produce tvs that use leds for individual pixels.

[xxitsdoughboyxx]

yeah i was gunna say that but you did it for me thanx bra

[Fou3Fan]

@xxflinkxx yes the do. "oled" google it

[rbselectblend]

@Evilhamster95 LED tv's are COMPLETELY different than what Kevtris has done... those TV's merely refer to the fact they use LED's for their backlight but the picture is LCD based.

[Georgedegriek]

Yes, he uses 3 leds close one to each other, doesn't he?1 blue 1 green 1 red. Every one of those "triplets" is like one "pixel" of our computer screen.

Led tv's on the other hand, i think they have special LEDs that can produce any color or shape they want,not sure though

[rbselectblend]

any *LCD* tv that says it uses LED's is merely for the backlight.. there are no LED's doing any pixel coloring.. it's white LED's behind the LCD that shine through so you can see the color the LCD produces. AMOLED is a perfect example of a REAL LED TV- the material in the screen itself generates the RGB lights.

[rbselectblend]

@Georgedegriek look up LED backlights on wikipedia. that will better explain the difference between LED / OLED screens and LCD's with LED backlights.

The screen in this video would classify as an LED screen where there are individual Red, Green and Blue emitters in each pixel. the combination of all three emitters produce color including white. off = black.

[skyykloudz]

wow... I am impressed... this makes me want to try a smaller scale project using a matrix of leds, keep it up!

[AgentCROCODILE]

Large LED matrix display + CLASSIC GAME BOY = EPIC WIN

[MFJVIDEO]

i can only assume your an alien

[lyonscabinfever1]

Absolutely fantastic effort! I have been an engineer for nearly 20 years... and I am very impressed by your effort!

BTW. If your display is 144x144 pixels and each pixel is RGB then aren't there actually 62208 LED elements!?

[kevtris]

yes, that is correct. 3 dice per LED, so the total count is 144*144*3.

[douro20]

He is quite an engineer.

[hjafdegdfhbd]

144

[ggrizzle]

very nice indeed good job, subbed :P

[tocomeko123]

Just curious but why not full res?

[gr3ff3n]

He still needs to add 20 more leds or something to get the full resolution

[PRWeasel]

He says in the video description that he needs 4 more boards.

[Nexxion]

Very nice :) Just curious, how big is the display? It looks to be about one foot by one foot, but it is hard to tell. Awesome work :)

[kevtris]

it is 31*31 inches on the LED portion

[Muvlonion]

cool i suppose but why is everbody so excited about LED displays? why not use a regular one?

[bugQ]

I'm guessing it's because you could see this thing from across the street.

[Lachlant1984]

I really like what you've done here, and the music is bloody awesome, it sounds like it was taken from a SNES game.

[Ahle2]

Actually it sounds A LOT more lika an Amiga module, or XM module... SNES had too little sample ram to produce such good results..

[Skippy1411]

1kw, of course heat is an issue

this is not 1kw of pure light ;)

[chainsawz]

what are the changing colour leds called?

[fshanahan]

This is outrageous (in a good way), but 1KW? Is heat an issue?

[mirabilis]

You're my idol, Kevin :)

[strongbad2795]

I really like this music and I know people have posted possible ways to find it but searching on the net and such have yielded no result. Where can i get this CD or Album?

[kevtris]

It is an S3M format music module. You will need a MOD/module/tracker plugin for winamp or similar to play it. Googling "S3M plugin" might yield some results. The actual S3M is called "Starshine" and is by Purple Motion. You can get the S3M here:

h t t p : / / amp.dascene. n e t /detail.php?detail=modules&vie­w=5984

(sorry I had to add spaces or else I cannot post the link, it gets filtered out)

[Afrotechmods]

I approve of this music!

[superjamiedotnet]

Something to give a conception of size, or even just a size in the description, would be good.

Whilst I understand 100 LEDs is going to be quite impressively tall, at the moment it just looks like a Gameboy screen mounted on a piece of card...

[kevtris]

it is 31*31 inches on the active area. Next time I take some video I will stand in front or something to demo the size.

[kevtris]

I keep trying to post the URL for my blog but it never posts for some reason. it's blog then kevtris then o then r then g. heh. You'd think I should be able to put a URL comment in my own video. (Also trying to put the proper specs in the description does not work. it claims there's "a problem" with the description but won't tell me why or where. I tried 10 or 12 times and gave up)

[twilight1138]

Do you have a website where you describe this project in more detail ?

[hybridchemistry]

Hey I'm interested in how you're displaying the information, will a site with more info be up? or is it up already? Thanks!

[curtisbeef]

now you just need to make a gigantic wooden gameboy case..

[FyberOptic]

That's pretty awesome. What are the physical dimensions of the screen?

[kevtris]

the active area is 31*31 inches

[nictamer]

It's too bad you didn't have someone or something recognizable standing next to it to give an idea of the size. As it is it's pretty impossible to make anything of the size.

[rasz]

thats 80cm for euro folks, nice size

[tedp70]

You rock!!

[bwanafr]

Why you don't want to share your FPGA project on your blog?

There is so many interesting things (PWM, gamma correction, LVDS interface...) you've done!

Thanks.

[asterick]

Kev, I still think you're insane. Nice new project. :) When are you making me one?

[00retrobrad00]

Absolutely amazing. Just the thought of soldering 20736 leds each with 4 legs is mind blowing!

Can I ask - did you get a big discount on the LEDs? the cheapest i have found them for is about $30 per 100

[kevtris]

I bought the boards on ebay, but they still weren't cheap. There's no way I could've soldered them on exactly. Also they got 6 pins on each. I did have to rework most of the boards, however- some LEDs were bad on them and I had to figure out how to remove them without damaging the board or other LEDs around the affect ones.

If anyone has to rework these boards, do not use a hot air rework station it will destroy 12 or so LEDs around the one you're trying to replace as I found out the hard way

[parkour0roosta]

i think they came pre soldered to the boards

[JGevaryahu]

Its an Amiga mod file (by Jonne Valtonen AKA Purple Motion). SID can't do samples like that (easily).

[kevtris]

Pretty sure it's not an Amiga file, it's .S3M so that's using the Screamtracker 3 format which was done on the PC.

[root02]

It may have been Amiga originally, modplug tracker can convert between tracker formats pretty well.

I have no knowledge to the source either way, just saying that it's possible.

[root02]

Regardless of the music, using an rgb LED screen as a gameboy display is freaking awesome. Good show, sir.

the power consumption is @_@ though. 1kW!?!? jeebus.

[zvpd]

It's an S3M file indeed, the song is titled "Starshine". Released as part of a PC musicdisk from Future Crew.

[fetymann]

ahh...  those were the days.

...Skaven, Necros, just to name a few.

[laserbeak43]

is that SID? That's damned good SID.

[laserbeak43]

beautiful man. nice job :) and thanks for sharing.

:)