Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Jason Wilson photo
Israel, Jerusalem
1 Level
698 Review
41 Karma

Review on Adafruit RGB Matrix HAT Raspberry by Jason Wilson

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Great board with RTC addon

Works great for me! I bought a 128x64 LED dot matrix display here. I used my raspberry pi and drove it directly. It worked fine. But the Raspberry Pi IO is at 3.3V and the matrix display is usually at 5V, there are glitches on the display, especially when the brightness is reduced. With this cap, it converts 3.3V logic to 5V, and no more glitches! Please note that you have to solder the pins. The pads are placed close together to match the pins on the Raspberry Pi. It's good to turn the Pi over and look at the pads and see how close they are. Even though the pads are tight and small, they are still easy to solder if you have soldering experience. Also note that if you follow Adafruit's guide to installing scripted libraries and examples, you'll be asked if you want better graphics mode or comfortable mode. With the best graphic selected you will need to solder an extra wire to connect the two pads to actually make it work. I also received a new board revision. It supports line E addressing, which requires soldering two pads on the board.

Pros
  • Decent performance
Cons
  • Miscellaneous Miscellaneous