It is not easy to make switching LED driver working properly on protoboard. If you etch a PCB for it, it will be OK. I would suggest to check the pre-made modules as mentioned before. In theory, driving power LEDs in parallel is a bad idea. In practice, it may be OK as long as you use exact same LEDs. If one led goes bad for whatever reason, the other led in parallel will burn out instantly. I recently designed a shield for power led and wrote about my experiences. It may be useful for you. http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,51887.0.html