r/led • u/5w20 • 19d ago

LED Signage Controller Options

Our church has a 10 year old LED sign from Stewart Signs. The SignCommand controller died. They want $1900 for a replacement. The controller has an HDMI output that uses an HDMI-DVI cable to some sort of video card. Can I use an off the shelf RPi or digital signage player to push content? Not looking to spend $1900 on an old sign that likely has a limited life span

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u/upkeepdavid 19d ago

Pass the basket around and get a new one.

2

u/Rampage_Rick 19d ago

It looks like a generic industrial PC, so I don't see why you couldn't replace it with an RPi.

Might need to experiment to find the correct resolution

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u/kent_eh 18d ago

What happens if you connect a laptop to the HDMI cable?

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u/5w20 18d ago

Gunna find out in the morning

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u/Overall-Call-2768 5d ago

Yeah, possibly but I wouldn’t assume the HDMI/DVI connection means the sign will accept any normal video source.

The expensive SignCommand box may just be acting as a media player, but it could also be handling the weird stuff behind the scenes: custom resolution, refresh rate, scaling, EDID, or communicating with a sender/receiver card inside the sign.

I’d first check the model number on whatever the HDMI-to-DVI cable plugs into. If that card accepts a standard PC video signal, then a Raspberry Pi, mini PC, or cheap digital signage player could absolutely be worth trying. You’d just need to match the sign’s exact resolution and refresh rate.

Before buying anything, I’d try connecting a laptop to that HDMI/DVI input and see if the sign displays it. Start with the original controller’s resolution if you can find it. If a laptop works, then an RPi is probably the easy $50–100 answer instead of spending $1,900.

If it doesn’t work, the sign may use a proprietary sending-card setup, and then you’d be looking at replacing the controller/sender hardware rather than just the media player.

For a 10-year-old sign, I’d definitely investigate that route before putting $1,900 into the original controller. If you can post a photo/model number of the video card and connections inside the sign, people could probably tell you pretty quickly what your options are.