This is my hand made 8x8x8 LED Cube. It took about 150 hours to make. I made the case out of wood and plexiglass held together with hotglue. It has an Arduino UNO for its brains, has 512 diffused blue LEDs, uses 8 74HC595 shift registers, 8 TIP 122 transistors, 64 100ohm resistors, and some capacitors. I made it all plugable so I can switch out parts or update parts later. It is powered from a 5v 2amp power supply from adafruit.com. I hand made the cube, the circuitry, box, and case. It cost me about $70 USD. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments and I'll try my best to answer questions. The code is from Liam Jackson.
http://jacksonliam.blogspot.com/2012/...
http://pastebin.com/CZn0bRWD
For more ideas:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Led-C...