LED Series Wiring
What is series wiring?
When LEDs are placed in a series, the voltage is dispersed between the LEDs, meaning less voltage goes to each of the LEDs. This can be very useful. For example, if a 24 volt adapter were powering one LED, there'd be 24 going through that LED which is way too much for any of our LEDs to handle and would result in a burning smell/melt down.
How do I hook up LEDs in series?
If you look at the diagram below, you can see what it means
to have LEDs in series. They share the same path, kind of like holding hands with people in a circle. Notice how the LEDs are layed out: (-) (+), (-) (+), etc. making sure that the end (-) connects to the (-) wire and the end (+) connects to the (+) wire, if any LEDs are backwards nothing bad happens, they just won't turn on.
If 3 LEDs were in series with a 24V source, each would receive 8V, if 6 were in series, each would receive 4V, etc.
How much voltage does each LED require?
This depends on the type and color. Most LED will require anywhere from 2-4V if they are just standalone LEDs without any resistors installed. If resistors are pre-installed, like many of our LEDs, then they can handle 9-14V.
How would this apply to our products?
Lets say you purchase any of our bare LEDs, designed for 2-3V voltage and want to use in your home which is 110V AC.
You would use the AC-DC adapter to take the 110V from your outlet and convert to 12V DC.
This 12V DC now can be used on the LEDs, if the LED are put in series. If you do not put the LEDs in series the LED would burn out because its only designed for 3V (example). See below example using LEDs designed for 3V. As you can see you can put 3 of them in series to the power supply and not use any resistors.