I've finally received the 32x32 panels in the mail and started assembling the play-field screen. Seeing this thing come together was a real joy!
I made some brackets from scrap wood to precisely align the LEDs with the pixel grid, which worked out quite well. And yes, no joke, right now the panel is mounted with fishing line.
The panel is driven directly from the GPIO ports of the Raspberry PI. This is possible thanks to hzellers LED library. The 3 ICs on the adapter board are TTL buffers for 3.3 V to 5 V conversion. On the right is the complete Fan-Tas-Tic controller board including all PSUs, mounted on a wooden plank
I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Especially adding the diffusor sheet from a LCD screen and replacing the window with tinted acrylic gave it exactly the stealth and pixelated look I was after. This is especially obvious in the video below, where I put it all together:
Next step is integrating the screen in the Mission Pinball framework and finally coming up with some game-rules, graphics and sound-effects.
