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[Reply #15 on:]

What?  You shouldn't recommend this - a power MOSFET gate can be in range 1nF to 20nF, that's like a short-circuit load to an Arduino output pin on short timescales - they can only take 40mA abs max so a gate resistor of 150 ohms or so is recommended. 

OK, we can put it back in again now we know it's not the problem...

I agree, the circuit looks fine on paper. There must be a wiring error somewhere. Time to start measuring voltages at various points in the circuit. The usual culprit is Vgs when people put the transistor before the load in the circuit.

[Reply #16 on:]

Disconnect the ckt from the Arduino completely, and get it working first on it's own, then hook
to the Arduino. When the gate is pulled up [5 to 12V], the Leds should turn on "brightly", not
dimly.

[Reply #17 on:]

The project works! Thank you to EVERYONE on the forum who helped. In short: The MOSFET mentioned in the thread works but I understand not the best one out there...but it does work well.

[Reply #18 on:]

So how did you get it to work? - Scotty