WLED_Billboard

WLED 48x32 Modular LED Matrix & DDP Control Daemon

A high-density 1,536-pixel (48x32) modular LED matrix built across 6 panels in a 3x2 landscape layout. Features custom 3D-printed prismatic diffuser lenses and a thread-safe Python HTTP daemon streaming real-time DDP (Distributed Display Protocol) frame buffers directly to WLED.

3D CAD files, OpenSCAD scripts, and assembly specs are published on Thingiverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7391918

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Hardware Architecture

• Resolution: 48 × 32 pixels (1,536 WS2812B LEDs)
• Panel Grid: 6 modular tiles arranged in a 3×2 landscape grid (16×16 pixels per tile)
• Pitch: 10mm center-to-center
• Diffuser System: Modular 0.4mm transparent PLA sandwich film with integrated 1.5mm square pegs, topped with 0.8mm micro-pyramid prismatic refractors to eliminate light bleed and LED hotspots.
• Protocol: DDP over UDP (Port 4048)

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Software & Daemon Features

• Multithreaded Engine: Non-blocking Python daemon handling HTTP requests and real-time animation loops concurrently.
• Active DDP Keep-Alive: Streams dynamic background frames during scroll sweep pauses to prevent WLED timeout drops.
• Display Modes:
  • Scroll Text: Variable scroll speed, adjustable sweep pauses, and custom text payloads.
  • Digital Clock: Toggleable date, seconds, and blinking colon. Automatically restricts font selection to monospaced typefaces when active to eliminate horizontal layout jitter.
  • Analog Clock: Procedural analog clock face rendering.
• Transient Alerts & State Restoration: Passing a duration > 0 temporarily interrupts the continuous ambient display to show an alert, automatically reverting to the previous state once the timer expires.
• Inline PNG Asset Engine: Drop $32\times32$ or $16\times16$ transparent PNGs into the icons/ directory and inject them inline using {icon:filename}. The engine preserves raw image colors while applying effects to the surrounding text.
• Dual-Layer FX Pipeline:
  • Independent foreground (text/clock) and background canvas effect engines.
  • Supported effects: solid, rainbow, gradient-h (horizontal), gradient-v (vertical), and pulse.
• Interactive Web Control Panel:
  • Integrated live WYSIWYG preview box with marquee scrolling animations and HTML token rendering.
  • Clickable status icon grid auto-populated from the local filesystem.
  • Real-time cURL command generator for API automation.
  • Automatic system TTF font detection and web preview font-loader.

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Quickstart

1. Run as Daemon

Start the HTTP controller on your host machine or hypervisor guest: ```bash python3 matrix_billboard.py --daemon --listen-ip 0.0.0.0 --listen-port 8080 --ip 192.168.1.100