thanks again to everyone who is helping me out.
If I could drop the whole 9v idea, that would be great. If I do decide to run them at 12v, should I use a 12v regulator to make sure the voltage never gets to high? I have had the meter on the battery and it was staying ~12v while I was riding, but I know it does fluctuate a little.
I will be using pulse width modulation, I have a small board made for that.
I stuck with three in a series because of the amount of space I had to solder everything together. Not sure how I could do it differently without making a custom circuit board or using less LEDs. I was trying to stuff as many as possible in there.
There are actually 27 Cree P4 Red Leds in the center and 9 Cree P4 Amber Leds on each side for the signals.
audioguru, thanks for explaining that the forward voltage isn't 2.5, I see what your saying. I had no idea I was supposed to measure each one. It sounds like I will be removing all these LEDs or buying new ones, so I can measure them either way. So you are saying I should match them up so they average out. Beyond matching them up, based on your experience with
your night-light, what do you suggest? BTW, I do have a bunch of Luxeon Super-Flux Leds here too, you are right, they look almost identical and the specs are similar.
Diver300, thanks for explaining the 5 or 6 LEDs in a series thing. I wondered why the calculators online always kept the amount in a series low, like 3 or 4 max.
Alright, based on what everyone is saying....if I ditch the 9v input idea (would like to!) and use the scooters 12v battery as input and kept the LEDs in series of three @ 20mA I would need to use 1/4W 270 ohm resistors according to the calculator I am using online. Seems like the resistors would be dealing with a lot of left over. Is this a bad idea? Would the resistors get too hot?
Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate the help!