led in parallel

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

It is not wise to connect leds directly papallel.
They can have some spreading in the forward voltage.
The one with the lowest forward voltage will get the most current and most likely will fail first.
When that one has failed, the others get more current and so on.

It is a good practice to give each led its own current limiting resistor.

Bertus
 

ramancini8

Joined Jul 18, 2012
473
The answer is NO. Bertus is correct; furthermore, depending on the brightness matching you desire you will have to adjust each series resistor to obtain the matching. That said, they won't stay matched (depending on your definition of matching) because temperature, age, voltage variations, etc. will cause brightness changes.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
The answer is NO. Bertus is correct; furthermore, depending on the brightness matching you desire you will have to adjust each series resistor to obtain the matching. That said, they won't stay matched (depending on your definition of matching) because temperature, age, voltage variations, etc. will cause brightness changes.
And if you'd want to gild the lily... then individual current control would be the thing, that's always the best (and most complicated and expensive) way to drive an LED...
 
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