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I've been looking into those Avago/Broadcom dot matrix displays recently. I don't think it'd be too hard to recreate something similar with tiny SMD LEDs on a PCB and a slightly intelligent driver board, for much cheaper. Would there be a market for something like that?

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Only if you can get them listed at Digi-Key/Mouser/etc. Even if it's under a "maker" brand like Adafruit, Sparkfun, etc. Anyone who can replacement TIL311 and friends displays in there, and advertise them, will sell quite a few.

They're not hard to make, but they're the sort of thing that no one really wants to make in-house, since they're a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. Great thing to sell, though!

It has been done a few times, but I doubt there would be any kind of market for it. https://hackaday.io/project/85515-redotmatrix

Electroluminescent glass panels on the other hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo

That redot project seems like perfect candidate for a kickstarter

In grad school I taught a electronics lab class where the students would burn through a bunch of HDSP-0772 every semester. I thought about coming up with a replacement, but at the time you could still get them for a somewhat reasonable price (like $10 or $20?).

At today's price of $50 it might be cost effective to do as you say, but I imagine there's not a huge market.

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