MobiFlight Community Support

I needed to feed 6, 8 digit LEDs and thought I would do it with three sets of ports. The first set of ports worked as expected but when I added a second (with different name) it was a total mess the displays would randomly work or not sometimes digits missing even ordered more displays. So to get it to work I strung all the displays off the one set of ports and it works. Reading through the sticky a Mega should easily handle the three sets of ports method.
Really appreciate the Mobiflight software and hope that Asobo will make more settings available to FSUIPC.

Hi

The Mega can handle what you plan for.... Aslong you build it correctly ! Your right. A Mega can handle 256 Diggits.... 4 Rows with 8 Max Chips each.... and that without problems !

Your issues have 2 reasons you need to figure out.... Then Problems are gone.

1. Power managment.
MaxTubes ( Premade Max chips on a PCB including 2x4 Displays) have a Diode onboard, that prevent the MaxChip from a Burnout if the user by misstake swap the power lines in wrong direction. The Disadvantage of this Diode is.... It reduce also the Power by 0.7 Volts. Means if you use Arduino 5V on the INPUT Side.... Then you can expect only 4,3 Volts on the Output Pin on the Right.
This will normay work for 2 Diplays.... But already the third in the row only have 3,6 Volts witch is nearly the minimum power that is needed. all Diplays behind will occure in issues or fully stop working.
To Solve this... You can rmove that diode by desoldering .... OR .... You simply just chain 4 Lines and wire the 5v line by hand paralell to each display ( instead of chain it, too)

2. Bad Contacts.
A Max is verry sensitive aslong it is not solder perfectly. Just a smooth touching of the table it lay on is enough to kill it and then you need a full restart of the Mega to make it working again.
Also the connectors on the left and right side of the tubes must work "perfect". Mostly 20-30% of China Tubes wont be build perfectly.... So we also need to check and rework that connectors.

In easy words.... If your wire and solder work is perfect and your power planings are ok.... Then all Displays work fine.... Up to 4x8 if needed.
Whatever i agree with you. If you need 6 Displays then i also would recommend to use 3x2 instead of 1x6. As shorter the chain as faster and stable is the final build !

Thanks for the response, I did know about the diode so I'm running power to them individually. It's always possible that there was a wiring problem, in any case, it's good to know that it should work if needed later.