I'm working on a design for a back-lit shadow box. I plan to light it using LEDs and have just bought a pack of 50 on ebay to play with. As I understand it, the LED can be wired in series with individual resistors or in parellel with 1 resistor. My questions are:
Since I will be designing as I go, I don't really know how many LEDs I'll be using, so can I use a adjustable resistor (reastat (sp)) and adjust the resistance as I add or remove LEDs?
What happens if the resistance is not properly matched to the number of LEDs?
Would such a set up make the lighting able to be dimmed?
If it helps, I plan to use a 12VDC supply. The LEDs are 50,000 whatever units, voltage is 3.2 - 3.6, 20 ma.
Thanks for any input, Perry