LED 101 / Hardware
Hub boards
Inside many cabinets, a hub board spreads data (and sometimes power) from the receive card out to the modules.
A hub board sits between the receive card and the LED modules. The receive card hands it image data; the hub fans that data out to the ribbons or connectors that plug into each module. Some designs also help with power distribution and with the timing that multiplexed (scanned) modules need.
Not every cabinet has a separate hub board. Some products put the receive card and hub functions on one card. Either way, the job is the same: get the right pixels to the right module without turning the inside of the cabinet into a nest of one-off wiring.
When a whole column of modules misbehaves, techs often look at the hub and the ribbons before they blame every module on that run.