Projects:LED Sign

LED Sign

In about mid 2016 the makerspace received about 6 of these LED signs. They are large arrays of LEDs that can be programmed to display messages. They currently have pre-programmed messages related to buses, as that is what they were previously used for.

The challenge put forth is: figure out how to program them directly without the use of a card-reader or the original software.

• Luminator LED Sign
• Model #: 510648001 Rev B

Display board:

• FW: MBUSMC-8-V2.2
• MBUSMS-8 07.5
• Chip on board: Winbond W78F052C40DL

Other chips on the boards:

• 74HC595D
• HC2450
• MAX....something

Notes:

• The main source of data seems to be the Winbond chips that are on the control panel circuit board and the LED board with the serial and RJ45 connectors on it
• The signs can be connected together in a Master/Slave configuration so one will display the data from the other
• Attempts at putting a data sniffer inbetween two signs in a Master/Slave config did not seem to work. The addition of the sniffer seemed to interfere with the signal itself.
• Data was extracted from the Tx pin on the Winbond chip. It doesn't appear to have any particular pattern. The data dump can be found in Resources below.

Resources:

• Google drive folder of pictures

• Maintenance and Spare Parts Manual

• Data Dumps from sniffing the UART line on an internal microcontroller:
  • Google Drive Link

• Datasheet of IC on controller chip