The present invention relates to the field of display technology, and more particularly to a LED display unit board, a LED display screen control card and a LED display screen system.
The LED display screen system as a new type of display technology is gradually accepted by the market owing to its advantages such as energy saving, environmental protection, higher brightness and so on, and thus it is widely used in urban media and city traffic applications.
The LED display screen system in the traffic application field is usually used to display messages such as names of road, road conditions and speed limits. However, any one LED of a LED display screen may go bad or dead, and when the number of bad/dead LEDs is too large or an area of the LED display screen has too many bad LEDs, the display of messages would be negatively influenced, and even to having the LED display screen displaying wrong messages. Therefore, how to make the LED display screen system in the traffic application field to detect LEDs fault/error in time is one of the problems emergently to be solved.
The fault detection in a LED display screen system of prior art is carried out by forming a circuit loop constituted by a receiving card, LED display unit boards and a monitoring board/card, more details can refer to the Chinese utility patent application submitted by the same applicant of the present invention on Jun. 25, 2012. The application number of the Chinese utility patent application is CN2012102110656.7, and the title of the Chinese utility patent application is “state detecting apparatus and detecting method of LED display screen”. The receiving card outputs data and control signals to the LED display unit boards. The LED display unit boards each include an input interface and an output interface, and transmit data signals to the next stage LED display unit board thereof. The output interface of the last stage LED display unit board is electrically connected to the monitoring board. The monitoring board/card receives the data outputted from the last stage LED display unit board and processes the received data, and then transmits/delivers the processed data to the receiving card. The receiving card analyzes received data and hereby obtains a LED fault condition of the LED display screen.
However, the prior art LED display screen system has the following disadvantages: (1) a LED box equipped with the LED display unit board(s) therein has excessive number of connection cables and thus is complicated; (2) the additional monitoring board is needed and thus the cost is higher. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide a LED fault detection solution with simplified connection and reduced cost.
Therefore, the present invention provides a LED display unit board, a LED display screen control card and a LED display screen system, so as to achieve a LED fault detection with simplified connection and low cost.
Specifically, an embodiment of the present invention provides a LED display unit board, the LED display unit board includes a circuit board and a plurality of LED pixel disposed on the circuit board. In addition, the LED display unit board further includes a first input-output interface, a LED driving circuit and a data return circuit. The first input-output interface is disposed on the circuit board. The LED driving is disposed on the circuit board and electrically connected to the first input-output interface to receive external data and control signals to thereby drive and control the plurality of LED pixels and generate return data representing a test result (i.e., generally fault detection result) of the LED display unit board. The data return circuit is disposed on the circuit board and electrically connected to the first input-output interface to transmit the return data to the first input-output interface.
Moreover, another embodiment of the present invention provides a LED display screen control card adapted for driving a LED display unit board string. The LED display unit board string includes one LED display unit board or a plurality of LED display unit boards connected in cascade. Specifically, the LED display screen control card includes a main control circuit, an input-output interface, an output circuit and a data return circuit. The input-output interface is adapted for being electrically connected to the LED display unit board string. The output circuit is electrically connected between the main control circuit and the input-output interface and configured (i.e., structured and arranged) to transmit data and control signals provided by the main control circuit to the input-output interface to thereby drive and control the LED display unit board string. The data return circuit is electrically connected between the main control circuit and the input-output interface and configured to receive return data generated from the LED display unit board string and transmitted to the input-output interface and then transmit the return data to the main control circuit. The return data represents a test result (fault detection result) of the LED display unit board string.
In addition, still another embodiment of the present invention provides a LED display screen system. The LED display screen system includes a main control card, a LED display unit board and a terminal connection module. A LED display unit board string is electrically connected to the LED display screen control card, and includes one LED display unit board or a plurality of LED display unit boards connected in cascade. The terminal connection module is electrically connected to the last stage LED display unit board of the LED display unit board string and is configured to make return data which represent a test result (fault detection result) of the LED display unit board string be returned to the LED display unit board string through the terminal connection module and then be transmitted to the LED display screen control card. The return data are generated by the LED display unit board string.
In the above various embodiments of the present invention, by disposing a data return circuit on the LED display screen control card, the LED display screen control card can be used together with a LED display unit board(s) each having a data return circuit, so there is no need to set the additional monitoring board like the prior art for building a circuit loop to perform the fault detection of the LED display unit board(s) of the LED display screen, the connection is simplified and the cost is lowered.
The above description is only an overview of the technical solutions of the present invention, and in order to more clearly understand technical means of the present invention and then can be implemented in accordance with contents of the specification, and in order to make the aforementioned and other objectives, features and advantages be more comprehensible, preferred embodiments will be described below in detail with reference to accompanying drawings.
In order to further illustrate the technical means adopted for achieving the intended purpose of the present invention and effects thereof, specific implementations, methods, processes and effects of a LED display unit board, a LED display screen control card and a LED display screen system provided by the present invention will be described below in detail in preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The foregoing and other related technical contents, features and effects of the present invention will be clearly described in detail below in the description of preferred embodiments with reference to accompanying drawings. By the illustration of specific embodiments, the technical means adopted for achieving the intended purpose and the effects thereof of the present invention can be comprehensively understood. However, the accompanying drawings are used for reference and description only, and not used to restrict the present invention.
Referring to
Moreover, the main control circuit 110, for example, includes a programmable logic device such as FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), or CPLD (Complex Programmable Logic Device), and so on. The main control circuit 110 can perform data conversion and gray scale control so as to provide display data and control signals to the output circuit 112. The output circuit 112 then transmits the display data and control signals to the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b through the input-output interface 113. Herein, the display data and control signals received by the LED display unit board 15b are delivered from the preceding stage LED display unit board 15a connected with the LED display unit board 15b in cascade. It is understood that the programmable logic device of the main control circuit 110 can be replaced by an embedded microprocessor such as ARM, MCU (Microcontroller Unit) and so on. Or, the main control circuit 110 includes a combination of the programmable logic device and the embedded microprocessor, and the programmable logic device and the embedded microprocessor may be disposed on the same circuit board or on different circuit boards respectively, so that the embedded microprocessor can be responsible for processing display content to form display content data and control signals such as clock signals, synchronization signals and so on, and then supplying the display content data and control signals to the programmable logic device for use; and the programmable logic device can be responsible for data conversion and gray scale control to thereby provide display data and control signals to the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b. The output circuit 112 is electrically connected between the main control circuit 110 and the input-output interface 113, and configured to output data and control signals such as R (red), G (green), B (blue) display data signal, an enable signal, data latch signals, shift clock signals, and control signals to the input-output interface 113. The data return circuit 114 is electrically connected between the main control circuit 110 and the input-output interface 113, and is configured to receive a return data inputted from the input-output interface 113 and then transmit the return data to the main control circuit 110. Herein, the data return circuit 114 is, for example, a driver chip (such as 74HC245 chip, etc.) for signal enhancement, or a discrete component circuit, or a connection line(s). In addition, it is known from the above description of the LED display control card 11 that: the input-output interface 113 can be divided into three parts, namely, an output data interface, a control signal interface and a return data interface. The three parts of the input-output interface 113 can be an integrally-formed structure, i.e., a single structure. The output data interface is used as an output port of the display data signals such as R, G, B, etc., the return data interface is used as an input port of the return data representing the test result of R, G, B three-color LEDs. it is understood that the embodiment of the display data signals being as R, G, B three-color LEDs data is corresponding to the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b each being provided with R, G, B three-color LEDs, but the present invention is not limited to this configuration/embodiment, the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b each may be provided only with R, G two-color LEDs, or may be provided with four-color LEDs, or may be provided with only a monochromatic LED in other embodiments.
The data return circuit 153 is electrically connected between the input-output interface J1 and the another input-output interface J3, and is used to transmit the return data inputted from the input-output interface J3 to the input-output interface J1. In this embodiment, the data return circuit 153 is for example a driver chip (such as 74HC245 chip, etc.) for signal enhancement, or a discrete component circuit, or a connection line(s). Furthermore, as seen from the above description of the LED display unit board 15a (15b), the input-output interface J1 can be divided into an input data interface, a control signal interface and a data return interfaces, and the another input-output interface J3 can be divided into an output data interface, a control signal interface and a data return interface. The input data interface of the input-output interface J1, the LED driving circuit 151 and the output data interface of the another input-output interface J3 together constitute a data generation path segment. The return data interface of the input-output interface J3, the data return circuit 153 and the return data interface of the input-output interface J1 together constitute a data return path segment. Therefore, the data generation path segment can generate and output return data representing a test result of the LEDs of the LED display unit board 15a (15b) under the control of the LED display screen control card 11, the return data then can be transmitted to the LED display screen control card 11 via the data return path segment for analyzing as to whether the LED display unit board 15a (15b) has one or more bad LED(s) and locate the position for the one or more bad LED(s). It can be understood according to the above description that, the data generation path is a forward transmission path while the data return path is a backward transmission path.
As seen from
Please refer to
It is noted that, in the embodiment as shown in
Furthermore, it is noted that, the above-described embodiments of the present invention use the fault point detection (also refer to as spot checking) of LED display unit board as an example of fault detection, but the present invention is not limited to the aforementioned fault point detection technique, and also may be applied or adapted to ribbon cable detection, driver chip failure detection, and so on. If the ribbon cable detection is taken as an example, when the LED display screen control card 11 controls the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b to perform the ribbon cable detection, the LED display screen control card 11 sends data for fault detection to the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b. After the LED display screen control card 11 receives test result data transmitted back by the data return circuits 153 of the LED display unit boards 15a, 15b, received test result data is compared with the sent data for fault detection. If the comparison result indicates that they are the same, which represents the ribbon cable is normal (or operating properly); however, if they are different from each other, which represents means that the ribbon cable is defective or abnormally operating and needed to be repaired. In addition, a process of driver chip failure detection is substantially the same as the process of ribbon cable detection, and thus will not be repeated herein.
In addition, in other embodiment, as shown in
Specifically, as shown in
In summary, the various embodiments of the present invention dispose the data return circuit on the LED display screen control card which can be used with a LED display unit board(s) having a data return circuit together, so that there is no need of having additional monitoring board for building a circuit loop to complete the fault detection of the LED display unit boards of the LED display screen, the connection is simplified and the cost is reduced. In addition, the LED display screen system of each embodiment of the present invention can be applied to the traffic field, but the invention is not limited thereto.
While the invention has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention needs not be limited to the disclosed embodiment. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.
Embodiments of the present invention dispose a data return circuit on the LED display screen control card which can be used with a LED display unit board(s) having a data return circuit, so that there is no need of the additional monitoring board for building a circuit loop to complete the fault detection of LED display unit boards of the LED display screen, the connection is simplified and the cost is reduced.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2013 1 0445544 | Sep 2013 | CN | national |
2013 1 0446042 | Sep 2013 | CN | national |
2013 1 0446064 | Sep 2013 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2014/073102 | 3/10/2014 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2015/043139 | 4/2/2015 | WO | A |
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20120074863 | Shimomura | Mar 2012 | A1 |
20120327129 | Li | Dec 2012 | A1 |
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201556400 | Aug 2010 | CN |
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20160275835 A1 | Sep 2016 | US |