LDK Experiment 2: Multiple LED Circuits

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Contributors: Dia
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Introduction

Welcome to the second experiment of the LilyPad Design Kit, where we'll learn how to add more than one LED to a circuit. Additionally, we'll learn about the two types of standard circuit configurations: series and parallel.

finished circuits example

When working with LEDs, you’ll use parallel circuits very often. In addition to being able to turn on more components with less voltage, they’re more durable. In a series circuit, if one LED gets damaged, all of the LEDs will stop working. In a parallel circuit, one broken LED won’t stop the others from lighting up! You may have heard of this effect, or experienced it firsthand, in Christmas lights.

In spite of the reasons to prefer parallel circuits for most projects, no education in basic circuits is complete without discussing series circuits, so we’ll give one a try!

Suggested Reading

Here are a few related tutorials that you might want to read over or refer to: