5016-8101 8x8 Red/Green LED Display Module Pinout

I was given a large (5 foot long) LED display. It contained a power supply, a controller board, and several display boards with these LED arrays on them. Each display board had several 8x8 LED modules arranged 3 high by 5 wide. Each LED module is an 8x8 array of Red/Green LEDs and was socketed. This is my attempt to know how each module was wired, in other words, the pinout of each 8x8 module.

Supplies

5016-8101 8x8 Red/Greed LED matrix display. These were made by Adaptive Microsystems.

Multimeter with diode-check function.

Step 1:

Background

This isn't really a project. I am just publishing the pinout of this module. I was unable to find any documentation, so I figured it out and am sharing here. I hope this helps someone with using this module.

This module is part of an electronic sign. The sign is very modular. There is a power supply, a controller board, and several boards containing 15 8x8 LED arrays arranged in a 3 (vertical) by 5 (horizontal) fashion. This means that each board has 24 (vertical) by 40 (horizontal) display elements, or pixels. Each pixel contains a red and a green LED.

I have not yet attempted to reverse-engineer the boards yet, but I suspect the circuitry is mainly drivers and shift registers.

This is the pinout of one 8x8 LED array.

Step 2:

Method

This module has 24 pins, arranged in two rows. I am using a pin numbering scheme that is like the one used for DIP IC's - looking down from the top (top meaning the LED side of the board), there are 12 pins going down vertically on the left, and another 12 on the right. Pin 1 is the top pin on the left, 12 is the bottom on the left, 13 is the bottom on the right, and 24 is the top on the right.

In the photo, pin 1 is on the upper-right. Pin 24 on the upper-left.

I used a multimeter in diode-check mode. This mode supplies enough voltage to light an LED but limits current, so it won't be damaged. For this module, the red LEDs lit up to what I would say is a medium-dim level, but the green LEDs lit up dim. The brightness wasn't important. Protecting the LEDs while I probed them was important. An alternative to a multimeter is to use a coin-cell battery. These are rated 3v but have a high internal resistance that limits current. They are excellent for testing LEDs.

The benefit of this method is safety. The multimeter, in diode-check mode, uses a voltage and current that is safe for LED's, even in reverse polarity.

With that said, I just started probing the pins and noting what lit up, and what pins and polarity. I logged this in a spreadsheet, using an 8x8 array of cells, denoting in each cell which pin combination lit a pixel up red, and which lit it up green.

I found there were 8 pins to select the row, and 16 pins to select the column/color.

Step 3:

Results

I didn't measure every pin combination once I saw the pattern. You see that in the first pic.

But the pattern was very evident, and I used that to generate the pinout:

Pin Function

1 C1Gc

2 C1Rc

3 C2Gc

4 C2Rc

5 C3Gc

6 C3Rc

7 C4Gc

8 C4Rc

9 R5a

10 R6a

11 R7a

12 R8a

24 R1a

23 R2a

22 R3a

21 R4a

20 C5Gc

19 C5Rc

18 C6Gc

17 C6Rc

16 C7Gc

15 C7Rc

14 C8Gc

13 C8Rc

Where:

C1Gc is column 1 Green cathode, C1Rc is column 1 Red cathode etc

R1a is Row 1 anode

I hope this helps someone with their project!