When you want to connect a group of lights together on one circuit, you typically wire them in series. This means that each light bulb is connected to the next lamp and then back to the battery in a loop, rather than connecting each lamp separately.
Wiring a group of LEDs in series is a good way to save energy on your power supply. It also helps to prevent the LEDs from drawing too much current, which can cause them to burn out faster.
If you want to get the most out of your light bulbs, wiring them in series will help to keep them brighter than if you were to connect them in parallel. When you wire a group of LEDs in series, each of them will have the same voltage, but they will draw a different amount of current.
To make sure you know what you’re doing when you are wiring a group of light bulbs in series, try making some simple circuits first. For instance, imagine a very simple circuit with four light bulbs and a 12-volt automotive battery. If the lights are wired in series, each light bulb will glow at full brightness because all of them are connected to the same battery in a single loop.
Now consider the same circuit but with a few more bulbs. If the lights are connected in parallel, each of them will still glow at full brightness because all of them have the same voltage, but they will draw less current.
In this case, the current through each of the light bulbs is the same, but the voltage drop is 3-volts across all of them, which may not be enough to make them all glow.
Another important thing to note when you are wiring a series of light bulbs is that if any of them burns out or gets disconnected, the rest of the lights in the circuit will stop working. This is very important to remember, and it’s why many people don’t use series when they are wiring a light circuit.
Here’s a fun activity to do that will help you understand what series and parallel mean when it comes to lights:
Take the bulb you were using for this experiment and cut off one end of a wire (shown in red). Wrap one end of the wire around the base of the bulb, then attach the other end of the wire to the negative end of the battery.
You will see that the light bulb now glows when you touch it to the positive or bumpy end of the battery. It will also light up when you touch the other end of the wire to the bottom tip of the bulb. This is a very easy way to understand the difference between series and parallel wiring.
In most cases, however, you will be best served by wiring a series of lights in a circuit, instead of trying to wire them in series. This is because a series connection means that each of the devices in the circuit must be connected to the same source and switched with a single switch, which can be a problem when you are working with a lot of bulbs.