Positive Ground vs Negitive Ground
#1
Positive Ground vs Negitive Ground
On the wire to hard wire my scanner there is a label that reads "For POSITIVE ground, attach the black wire to the negitive wire on the battery and the red wire to the chassis. For NEGITIVE ground attach the red wire to the positive terminal on the battery and the black wire to the chassis."
Whats the difference and which is better?
Whats the difference and which is better?
#2
#4
All correct. It's nice that they provide those instructions, but for the vast majority of US installations, they are useless.
It does tell you that the scanner has it's chassis isolated from power ground though, which is interesting.
As has been noted, just wire it negative ground. Positive ground causes more chassis corrosion and that's why it was abandoned. You may have noticed over the years that the positive terminal of a battery tends to corrode more than the negative in an atmospheric environment.
Similar things are actually done using various metals on metal ship hulls using "sacrificial anodes" that get worn away to minimize corrosion of the hull plates.
Here's a wiki on that if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_anode
It does tell you that the scanner has it's chassis isolated from power ground though, which is interesting.
As has been noted, just wire it negative ground. Positive ground causes more chassis corrosion and that's why it was abandoned. You may have noticed over the years that the positive terminal of a battery tends to corrode more than the negative in an atmospheric environment.
Similar things are actually done using various metals on metal ship hulls using "sacrificial anodes" that get worn away to minimize corrosion of the hull plates.
Here's a wiki on that if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_anode
Last edited by n3elz; 05-08-2008 at 09:24 AM.
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