Lost your module file? Don’t worry. With the smart settings, you can easily recreate your settings and ensure everything is back on track without missing a beat.
Achieving the perfect display requires careful configuration of LED modules. The wrong setting can result in distorted images, color inaccuracies, and inconsistent brightness levels that detract from the intended visual experience.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the smart settings techniques that ensure your LED displays are optimized for stellar performance. You’ll discover everything from hardware connections to fine-tuning settings.
In This Article
What is Smart Setting?
The Smart Settings functionality is a streamlined process that automates the configuration settings for LED modules. It focuses on optimizing the display to ensure that images and videos are represented accurately on the LED screens.
By automatically detecting and configuring various parameters of the LED modules, smart setting reduces the complexity involved in traditional manual setups.
Why You Need Smart Setting
Utilizing smart settings is essential for a couple of reasons:
- Efficiency: It simplifies complex configurations, saving time and reducing the likelihood of human error.
- Consistency: Ensures uniformity across multiple modules by automating settings that match across different panels.
- Performance: Enhances display performance by optimizing settings like resolution and refresh rate.
- Ease of Use: Reduces the technical barrier for users, allowing even those with limited experience to configure settings effectively.
How to Modify the Graphic Output
Before diving into smart setting, it’s essential to modify the graphic output settings on your PC. Here’s how to do it on a Windows 10 system (similar steps apply to Windows 7 and Windows 11):
Step 1. Right-click on the desktop and select Display settings.
Step 2. Under Scale and Layout, adjust the “Change the Size of text, apps, and other items” to 100%. Set the “Resolution” to a value equal to or higher than the resolution of your LED display. For Multiple displays, select “Duplicate these displays” and click Keep changes.
This configuration will ensure that your PC output matches the specifications of your LED screen.
Obtain Module Information
In addition, we need to gather the necessary technical specifications of your LED modules:
- Driver IC: The integrated circuit controlling the LED operation.
- Decoding IC: The chip responsible for decoding the signals sent to the LED.
- Pixel Width and Height: The resolution of the module in terms of pixels.
Ensure this information is accurate, as we will use it later in the following steps.
Hardware Connection Setup
After we collect the required module information, we need to set up your hardware now, follow these steps:
- Connect the Sending Card: Use a USB cable to connect your sending card to the control PC. This cable transmits control signals.
- Connect Video Cable: Use a DVI or HDMI cable to connect the sending card to the video source. This cable carries the video signal.
- Connect Ethernet Cable: Use an RJ45 Ethernet cable to connect the sending card to the receiving card.
- Connect the Receiving Card to the LED Module: Use a flat data cable to connect the receiving card to the LED module.
It’s important to note a few key points about the hardware connection:
- The LED module should be connected to the first slot (JH1) of the HUB card of the first receiving card, which in turn is connected to the first port of the sending card.
- Ensure the sending card is directly connected to the control PC, and no third-party devices are connected.
- The control PC should be in duplicate display mode with a scaling level of 100%.
Here is a simple connectin structure for your review:
Software Download and Installation
Here I use Novalct software as a demonstration, you can use the same rules to apply to other software such as LEDVision, LEDStudio, etc.
To use the Novastar smart setting feature, you’ll need to download the latest version of the NovaLCT software from the Novastar official website or here. Once you download the zip file, unzip it and double-click the EXE file to run the installation process.
Software Configuration
After the software is ready, next we will process the software setting part.
First, Select “Users” > “Advanced Synchronous System User Login” and enter the password “admin” to log in.
Click the “Screen Configuration” button in the toolbar. A pop-up interface will appear to select the port. Keep the default value and click “Next” to enter the main interface of the “Screen Configuration” function.
Next, click the “Screen Configuration” button. A new interface will appear, showing only one communication port; As there is only one port in this case, so keet the value as defualt.
Then click “Next“. You will see another screen with three tabs: Sending Card, Receiving Card, and Screen Connection. This is where we call it the main interface of Screen Configuration.
1. Sending Card Setting
First, we need to set the Sending card parameter. open the Tab “Sending Card” page.
In the “Source Configuration” subsection, set the resolution to match the graphics card resolution, then click “Set” and “Refresh” to apply the changes. You can follow the steps as show in the following image:
- Step 1: Select the corresponding Resolution whch is the same as the output resolution of graphics card.
- Step 2: Click the button “Set”.
- Step 3: Click “Refresh” to check the status
After done, in the “Sending Card” tab, you will find the resolution of the sending card and the graphics output resolution in the “Current Display Mode” section. If they are the same, it means we have set successfully.
To this point, all send card setting is over, we no need to set other parameter in this tab page.
2. Receiving Card Setting
Next, we navigate to the tab “Receiver Card” page. do the following step one by one.
Step 1. Click on the Smart Setting button located at the bottom left corner.
Step 2. A pop-up interface called Smart Setting Selection will appear with three options:
- Option 1: Make the module on by smart setting.
- Option 2: Load module information from file.
- Option 3: Load module information from cabinet.
It’s clear that we’ll select Option 1, as we haven’t yet created any module configuration files. Then click Next.
Step 3. The “Smart Setting Guide 1” interface will appear. This guide comprises four sections: Module Chip, Data Type, Module Information, and Working Mode of the Receiver Card.
Module Chip Selection: Click “Select chip type” within the Module Chip section. This opens a selection interface where you can choose the appropriate driver IC. If your specific driver IC is not listed, select “Common Chip“. Once you’ve made your selection, click “OK“
Data Type Configuration: Move on to the Data Type section. In most cases, we keep it the default value, so you can leave it unchanged.
Module Information Setup: In this section, first set the “Module Type“. Select “Regular” if your module is rectangular; choose “Irregular” for other shapes. Next, input the pixel width and height. For example, set X to 64 if there are 64 pixels in width and Y to 32 for 32 pixels in height. Ensure these values match your actual module specifications.
Row Decoding: Choose the appropriate Row decoding we just obtained before. In this example, we set 74HC138, you need to set based on your actual module specifications.
Working Mode of Receiver Card: Typically, you can keep these settings at their default values unless specific adjustments are needed.
After all is done, click “Next” to go to Guide 2.
Step 4. In “Smart Setting Guide 2“, you must adjust the value based on your screen’s actual display. In other words, you should observe the LED module. If it’s completely dark (no LEDs lit), select “Full Black“, if colors are displayed, choose “Display“, then click “Next” to go to Guide 3.
Step 5. Proceed to “Smart Setting Guide 3“. Here, manually switch settings, checking each radio button (1 through 4). Select the colors based on what your module actually displays. For instance, if selecting Number 2 reveals a green display, set it to “Green”. Continue this operation for the remaining numbers. Once done, click “Next” to go to Guide 4.
Step 5. In “Smart Setting Guide 4“, count the lit rows or columns on the LED module to enter the corresponding value. If the LEDs of one row are all lighted, then we choose “Row”, if the LEDs of one column are all lighted, then we choose “Column”. In the meantime, count the row numbers or column numbers with LED lighted, and enter the value. As shown in the following picture, we should choose “Row” and enter the Number of Lighted “16”. Then click “Next” to go to guide 5.
Step 6. At “Smart Setting Guide 5“. The operation is the same as the last step, input the number of lit rows or columns again to specify the “Lighted rows(columns) on the module“. In the following image, we should enter “1“. After that, then click “Next” to go to guide 6.
Step 7. In “Smart Setting Guide 6”. you’ll see a pixel flashing on the LED module’s top-left corner and many small square blocks in the grid table. Click the corresponding small square block in the grid table that correlates to this pixel.
After drawing the first pixel, observe the second flashing pixel of the module, then draw the second small square block, and so on. Please ensure that to match each flashing pixel on the module with the corresponding position on the grid.
If a consistent pattern emerges, use the “Automatic generation” feature to let the Novalct finish the left pixel drawing.
In addition, you can also navigate using the arrow keys on your keyboard to replace the clicking using mouse.
Once all flashing pixels are correctly matched, the software will notify you with “Completed drawing running line table“. Confirm by clicking “OK” and proceed by clicking “Next“.
The software will then prompt you to Save module information. Name your file name and select a destination to save. Click “Save” and a confirmation message “Saved module configuration file successfully” will appear. After that, a file will be stored with a “.module” suffix in the local PC.
Click “OK” to close the message, then click “Complete” in the save interface.
To this point, all steps of smart setting are done.
Test Smart Setting
Once configurations are finalized, perform a test to ensure everything displays correctly:
How to do?
Move the cursor to the upper-left corner of your PC desktop and observe the LED module. If the screen mirrors the cursor’s movement, the setup is correct. If not, retrace your steps to troubleshoot potential configuration errors.
To Sum Up
In this guide, we explored the Smart Settings function, a user-friendly tool designed to simplify the configuration of LED modules. By only needing to input basic parameters—driver IC, decoding IC, pixel width, and pixel height—anyone can effortlessly set up their LED modules to function optimally.
If you have any further questions or concerns about the smart settings, please feel free to contact us. For more LED display tutorials, check here.
Useful Resource
Want to master how to do Screen Configuration using NovaLCT after you have done the smart settings, check here.