On 12/07/2015 02:13 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
wrote in message
news

Ideally, a power supply would exist that would create 2 or 3 volts DC,
and each LED would be wired in parallel (individually). This power
supply would have capacitors to eliminate flicker. But these mass
produced light strings are made cheap, to sell cheaply, so they use the
series wiring....


As LEDs are mainly a current device instead of voltage devices they operate
better in series even if it means a real pain to find the bad one if it
opens.


They maintain a constant voltage, usually 2-3 volts per LED. An excess
supply voltage causes the LED to draw more current, to drop the voltage
to the proper value. To protect the LEDs, the circuit needs to be able
to supply no more than about 30mA before voltage drops too low.

It is better to have several in series when using them with a high
supply voltage (like 120V). Then less power has to be wasted in the
current limiting resistor.

BTW, That's very different from why small incandescents are better in
series.

--
17 days until the winter celebration (Friday December 25, 2015 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"There's no more proof for the existence of God than there is for the
existence of the Easter Bunny. That's right. The Easter ****ing Bunny."
[Stryder, on alt.atheism]