Connecting LED Strips in “Series” vs “Parallel”

You’ve decided to use LED strip lights for your next project, or you may even be at the point where you’re ready to wire everything up. If you have more than one run of LED strip, and you’re trying to connect them to a single power source, you might be wondering: should they be connected in series or in parallel?

But first of all,do you know what is series and parallel?
Series is one of the basic ways to connect circuit components. Connect circuit elements one by one in sequence. The circuit that connects each electrical appliance in series is called series circuit. Parallel connection is a connection mode between components, is the two of the same or different types of components, devices, etc., the first phase, at the same time, the tail is also connected to a connection mode. It is usually used to refer to the connection of electronic components in a circuit, that is, a parallel circuit.

How To Connect LED Strips In “Series”?

If you just need to span a short distance, you might find some solderless connectors handy, or you can even span a longer distance with copper wires cut to the exact length you need. For longer runs, you’ll want to watch for voltage drop, but otherwise, all you really need to do is to produce an electrical connection between the positive/negative copper pads from one LED strip section to another:

How To Connect LED Strips in “Parallel”?

The alternative to connecting multiple LED strip sections together is to wire them in “parallel.” This method involves creating independent runs of LED strip sections, each of which are wired directly to the power source.

As you can see in the diagram, this reduces the amount of current that needs to pass through any given LED strip section, because they are wired directly to the power source. This can help significantly in reducing the potential for voltage drop.

Why “Series” and “Parallel” are Technically Incorrect?

Most popular low voltage 12V and 24V LED strip,each group has 3 LEDs,and this 3LEDs  are connected in series,not simply like in the non-engineering sense, as in “one after the other.And most customer use them in series,Because this provides the same current to all the lamps, the lamps in the same string can have the same brightness, and if only one lamp is short-circuited and there is a short-circuit fault, then the other lights can still be lit. At the same time start with IC output as long as 1 current, can light up all the lights in series, circuit structure is single.
We also have high voltage LED strip information if you are  interested.