Looking for other ideas for wiring LEDs

i am currently in the process of wiring about 50 LEDs onto a PC board to replace the standard bulbs in my motorcycle.  I plan on just wiring 7 LEDs together (2v a piece at 20ma a piece=14v 140ma) in series and using small fuses to protect each series of 7 LEDs.  I've tested this using a 12v power supply and it seems to work OK but I am not sure how well it would work on the bike.  Is there any other way that might be safer or more reliable?  I was also thinking that if one of the LEDs goes bad in the series...they all won't work...how might I avoid this?

use a potentiometer. wire them all in parallel with the potentiometer but use a resistor that will drop the voltage down to 2-3 volts. so then all the led s will work and you'll only need one potentiometer and a couple resistors.  then you'll also have the control to dim them all at the same time. if one burns out then the others will stay lit

Lets say I have 50 LEDs at 2 volts and 20ma a piece...wired in parallel.  How do I know what size resistor to use?  Why would I want to use the potentiometer if I can just use resistors...I don't need to dim them.

the resister would need to be there to lower the voltage to 2-3 volts. yes you could have  just a resistor, but you'd have to calculate the resistor properly , because if you have too smal of a resister then you'll blow all of your led s . if you were to use a resister, any resister then you would auto matically lower the voltage to start and then use the potentiometer to control the last bit of resistance.see. when you hook up the potentiometer to a volt meter, you can find the exact spot to set the potentiometer so that only 2-3 volts go through. esentially you can do this without a resistor, (seeing as how you are using 50 leds. but as soon as you go over the 3 volt limit you'll end up with nothing but melting plastic.see the potentiometer is a resistor itself, that's how it works, the only reason you would use a resister is so that you don't accedentally go full throttle in the potentiometer and kill you whole lights. also if you are using 50 leds  make sure you fuse it at 1 amp. or even 750 ma. so that you protect all your leds.  just set the potentiometer and use either a switch to turn them on or even power from an accesory to turn them on. you don't neccessarily need to use the potentiometer to turn them on, just use it to regulate the 2-3 volts.good luck

why don't you wire 7 leds in series and parallel with 6 more sets of leds in series which will give you 49 leds. since each led takes 2 volts to operate,  you would be safe with 14 volts across 7 leds in series. if one led goes out, only that set goes out..Karl

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