If im wiring a bunch of LEDs in paralell, can i just put one resistor in the positive wire going to the LEDs instead of soldering a resistor to each LED?

 

Yes you can so long as they are feeding off the same positive wire (which I assume they are). Basically:


+ __^^^^______]_]_]_]



where ^^^^ is the resistor and ] is an LED. Rough, yes but it should give you a good enough idea. But the "top" of the LEDs should go back to ground but the php won't let me do it to make it look right.

 

ok, sounds good....will it affect the brightness of LEDs further down the line?

 

Depends on the amount of resistance used. As a rule, though, I wouldn't go more than 3 LEDs per resistor.

At least, that's how I'm working things...

 

No, it will not affect the brightness (or it shouldn't if its done properly). Series connections would affect the brightness (Series = + ___^___^___^___ - where the ^ is your LED or whatever) since the voltage drop across each decreases as you get further from the source. However, a way to reduce the need for a resistor is to increase the number of LEDs in series. Basically, the LED has an internal resistance of X. Basically, it takes R * Y LEDs to make X ohms of resistance where R is the resistance of the LED. And since you add resistances in series, you can just place all the LEDs in series and eliminate the resistor entirely. Its not that complicated. Just do a search on google or something for LEDs or series LEDs or resistance in series or parallel or something like that. Good luck.

Note: The LEDs will decrease brightness in series SLIGHTLY but I doubt you even notice the difference from start to finish it is so slight.