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Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
@allObjects
Forward voltage red vs the others is about or typically 2.2 to 3.5... running a red LED in parallel to a green or blue may prevent them to even lighten up... and if not, the red one will have a significantly shortened life span (max for a red is about 3.1 where minimum for green and blue are about 2.85V).
595's seem anyway not the right thing to me since the source and sink capabilities are very limited (as per data sheet). Doing a full spectrum RGB with such a setup is quite challenging. With 3 separate RGB source / sink options you may get even intensity to create 8 decent colors. The module you refer to is a very primitive one and with given circuitry of just 595's you have pretty limited options. To make it work, you may rather have just the LED matrixes and find / built the circuitry for you demands. I'm sure you do not want to alter the carrier / breakout boards to make them better...
Alternatives for a full spectrum, you have to go for Neopixels or DotStars. Neopixels pose signal timing challenges and DotStars (adafruit) aren't cheap. It all depends on your application...