“The amount of LEDs they've crammed onto this is ridiculous. With 17x7 pixels, it's much better resolution than the old version. It's also nice to be able to control the brightness per pixel. The scrolling text is much more readable now.
I don't mind the missing mounting holes, I don't need them for my purposes. The chip and other components mounted on the back caused a minor issue making me have to modify my case for it to fit properly.”
“I work in the live music industry and it can be very hard to communicate with others in this very loud environment but then along came the ScollPhatHD. It's a cool bit of kit that is very easy to set up by following the excellent tutorial and scrolling messages can easily be updated via SSH using just the sample scripts and modifying them. And it's so bright I can also use it as a torch!!!!!
I'm hoping to eventually use a six (or more) button shim like Frederick Vandenbosch's to display up to six preset messages”
“I've ordered two of these to use with Zero W's: the Scroll pHAT HD is a perfect match in size with the Zero(e)s. Throw in a Pibow Zero W, and this is beautiful tiny stack to signal information by scrolling it through the HAT. The HD variant is much better than the ordinary (lowres? SD?) Scroll pHAT.
One disadvantage of the design is that lighted LEDs tend to shine their bright light (even at 0.1 max) onto adjacent LEDs, so these appear to be dimmed. Some kind of black matrix would avoid such unwanted reflections.
Another bonus would be if there could be a frosted plate to be put or glued over the LEDs when you are looking at the Scroll pHAT HD LEDs with your naked eyes.
Tired of soldering and as I still had a female hammer header from another order, I got a second female hammer header and hammered them in. This worked quite nicely, but at some pain. No, my hammering capabilities are sufficient, there was no self-inflicted injuries.
The pain is actually caused by the mounting holes of the Scroll pHAT HD being too narrow, so the nylon bolts would not easily slide in. Instead, I had them to screw in using considerable force. Afterwards, I had to exert still some force again to remove the screws from their holes. The same with my second Scroll pHAT.
With the two drawbacks in mind (mounting holes much too tight, requiring quite some effort to use with the hammer headers) and the "side illumination" of adjacent LEDs I consider the Scroll pHAT HD to be four stars.”
“I'm one of those who had been a fan of the Scroll pHAT but found the space just a little restricted, so those extra LEDs really come in very handy. There's one thing -- and only one -- that I'd like to see improved, and that's the fixed I2C address. Even hard-core solder junkies will have a hard time separating that AD pin from the pad and connecting it elsewhere to change the address. Why not make it slightly easier by offering blank pads, one for the AD pin and one for each of GND, Vcc, SCL, and SDA, with a narrow trace connecting AD and GND that can be cut if needed by those who know what they're doing?
An adjustable I2C address would enable what I'm currently unable to do: use the "Mini Black HAT Hack3r" for making a display from two Scroll HDs and a Blinkt!, something that the Black HAT seems to be made for.
Adjustable I2C addresses, please!”
