Where a series circuit receives the same current to each LED, a parallel circuit receives the same voltage to each LED and the total current to each LED is the total current output of the driver divided by the number of parallel LEDs.Īgain, don’t worry, here we will see how to wire a parallel LED circuit and that should help tie the ideas together. Whatever the reason, here is how to understand and configure a parallel LED circuit. Sometimes the input voltage might not be enough to power multiple LEDs in series, or maybe there are too many LEDs to have in-series or you just want to limit the cost of LED drivers. Hopefully, you are able to find a driver that can accomplish your LED circuit with the diodes in-series, however, there are circumstances that might make it impossible. Some drivers require inputting slightly more to account for powering the internal circuitry of the driver (the BuckBlock Driver needs a 2V overhead), while others have boosting ( FlexBlock) features that allow you to input less. But, in general, it’s important to make sure that your input voltage into the driver can deliver an output voltage equal to or greater than the 8.85V we figured out above. For a deeper understanding of LED drivers take a look here. As LEDs heat up their forward voltages change, so it’s important to use a driver that can vary its output voltage but keep the same output current. In the beginning, we mentioned using a constant current LED driver because these power modules can vary their output voltages to match the series circuit. So theoretically, 8.85V is the minimum required input voltage to drive this circuit. The sum of three of these LED forward voltages is equal to 8.85V DC. Let’s take a look at this by using the above circuit again as an example and let’s assume the LED is a Cree XP-L driven at 1050mA with a forward voltage of 2.95V. This means you have to supply, at minimum, the sum of the forward voltages of each LED. The second bullet point above states, “The total voltage of the circuit is the sum of the voltages across each LED”. The loop concept is no problem by now and you definitely could figure how how to wire it, but how about actually POWERING a series circuit.
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