From the forums: controlling a bunch of LEDs?

Posting in the Make: forums, schoschie asks:

I’ve had an idea a while ago of making a light-object that will contain a matrix of 10 x 8 RGB “cells”. I was thinking of using a red, green, blue LED for each cell because that’s how I’ve seen it being done in a PAR light that we have in our band rehearsal room. That would amount to a total of 240 LEDs.

My specific question is as to what techniques are available to control a large(ish) number of LEDs using a microcontroller such as the Atmel AVR…

Pictured above is the MAX7219 chip from my first prototype of the FoolsBrd. There are a couple answers in the forums right now; post a reply if you’ve got any suggestions!

Make – Techniques for controlling a (large) number of LEDs?