Why are Christmas tree lights wired with parallel circuits instead of with series circuits?

Answer 1

voltage drop across all the parallel elements is equal and it is equal to input voltage.

we know for home applications in voltage and frequency is fixed, ex: in India voltage=230v and frequency=50 Hz. All devices we used in home having voltage specification =230 to 240v, but different current. so home use parallel circuits.

To make this a bit more general, in a series circuit each device in the circuit has some dependence on all the other items. A simple example is a number of light bulbs in series. If any one light bulb burns out the circuit opens and all the other bulbs go out. Also if you needed to add more bulbs in the same series circuit then all bulbs would be dimmer.

Answer 2

More expensive light will be connected in parallel so that when one bulb burns out the rest will stay on. Cheaper lights are still connected in series and that is why when you remove one bulb they all go out.

Answer 3

You can determine if your lights are wired in series by taking out a bulb in one light and seeing if it makes the lights around it go dead as well. If so then your lights are wired in series and by breaking the conductive connection at one bulb you're preventing current from getting to the other bulbs as well.

If on the other hand your lights are wired in parallel then breaking the connection at one light won't create an open circuit (ie broken loop) for any of the other lights and so the surrounding lights should stay on.

**note there may also be other ways of keeping surrounding lights from going dead besides wiring them in parallel.

Answer 4

For the same reason that the lights in your home are wired in parallel instead of series: if one bulb fails it is the only one that does not light. If they were wired in series, when any one bulb failed the entire string would not light (making it much harder to identify the failed bulb).

However some Christmas tree lights are wired in series, but they use special low voltage bulbs using a special internal shorting switch that reconnects the circuit through a burned out bulb permitting the other bulbs to continue to receive current and remain lighted.

However incandescent Christmas tree lights are being phased out and replaced with LED Christmas tree lights, which won't fail for many years and run much cooler (effectively eliminating the risk of Christmas tree fires caused by the electric lights). This also largely makes the issue of parallel vs. serial wiring of Christmas tree lights irrelevant, as you won't be replacing the bulbs.