Finally we have our own design to offer as a kit, and we spent yesterday evening packaging our first batch of 595 matrix kit.
The kit is based on the classic 74HC595 shift register and it provides an easy way to control 8×8 RGB LED matrix from Arduino or other microcontroller. Multiple kits can be chained together to create a bigger panel. The design is licensed under Creative commons and the design and code examples are available at http://kits.paeae.com/595matrix. You can buy the kit from our shop at http://paeae.com.
Built this tonight, a few hours after purchasing at Alt 2010. Nice design with minimal number of parts. Took maybe an hour to build and worked like a charm after hooking up with a spare Teensy 1.0
Ideas for improvement: Perhaps consider using resistor networks for slightly easier/faster build? On documentation side, it took me a while to ensure what the correct VCC should be. Some notes about current consumption would be nice as well; I was initially a bit scared about frying my USB port, but then chose not to worry about those kind of things. Seems to be ok at least when multiplexing one row at a time, but don’t know what happens if you light everything up at the same time.
Great kit, A+++++++ would buy again.
Thanks for the ideas! I’ll update the documentation with the VCC / current information