After all the great help I received here, I've taken your advice and added a PAM2861 driver for each string.
LED1,2 and LED3,4 will now run at 0.5amp independent of each other.
LED5,6 will be switched ON or OFF. LED1-4 will be ON all the time.
TVS is transient voltage suppression diode that hopefully will help protect the circuit.
D4 is reverse polarity protection.
Do you see any potential problems with this design other than more power consumption?
Sorry, I don't know how to crop a screenshot. I'm old.
Thanks again.

 

Sorry, I don't know how to crop a screenshot. I'm old.

On Win 10/11 you can use the snapshot tool (win-shift-s) to grab a portion of the screen.

If you print to black and white PDF and take a snapshot from that, you'll get rid of the colors (colored schematics look childish) and the grid (assuming the program doesn't do something silly like not give you the option to not print the grid). The PDF viewer I use has a snapshot tool. If the one you use doesn't, use win-shift-s.

 

Sorry, I don't know how to crop a screenshot. I'm old.

What version of Windows are you using? I don't recognize the layout.

At some point Windows added the Snipping Tool, which is very convenient and easy to use. I think you MAY already have it.



The icon pointed to looks similar to the Snipping Tool icon, but I'm not sure.

Enter "Snip" in your task bar's search box and, if you have it, it should pop up.

I frequently snip the part of the screen I want and then paste it into Paint to make modifications (like adding the red arrow) and then select all and copy to the clipboard and then paste directly into the post. No need to actually save any files at all.

 

ok, here's my snip. i learned something today. i'm using windows 7 on this computer. i have 10 on the others and don't like it.
now back to original question - is this circuit ok?
what's your prediction on power supply current draw?
the original design with parallel strings set to run at 1 amp pulled 0.6 amp on power supply.
thanks

 

no critique all day...i guess it's good?

 

got the new circuit built with a driver for each string instead of 1 driver for parallel strings.
almost identical current draw on power supply.
no noticeable difference in brightness.
circuit works perfect for switching different strings on and off.
now do i scrap all the old 1 driver circuit boards?
thanks everyone.