Is there a convention as to placing a resistor before or after an LED?

Question

We know that it makes no difference whether a resistor is placed "before" or "after" an LED in a circuit.

• Changing the resistor to be in front or behind an LED doesn't affect brightness?
• Does the resistor have to be before or after the component
• Should Resistor be before or after an LED series

Is there a commonly used convention that encourages one or the other?

Answer 1

Consider the possibility of a momentary short from one of the LED leads to ground (ground could be connected to the chassis)- perhaps it causes no problem if there is a remote resistor connected to Vdd but, if the LED is connected directly to Vdd, the short instantly destroys the LED. Or it shorts out the power supply.

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

There may be other similar situations you can come up with. But really electrically it makes little or no difference one way or the other until you invoke such possibilities.