positive ground?

[Pepsi Mechanic]

It might have to do with arcing .. I do believe there is less arcing at the switches and contacts with pos. ground .. kinda like a light switch in your home If you use the white instead of the black for the switch it arcs more ..

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

i heard they switched to negative ground because as the car was moving there would be some electron loss to the moving air/ground similar to static electricity & positive ground would not charge the battery as well when moving due to this loss

Geez! I,m confused, does this mean that the ground, (as in dirt) is negative - and the air around us is positive +?
Chief is gone to Model A heaven, so I cannot ask him. He explained electrical stuff by talking about those "little men" that ran around in the wires making things happen. It was important that they ran in the proper direction! He said they should run from + to - as best I remember.
I DO know what a solid state semi- conductor with a negative coefficient is and I Do know how a diode works and I do know that a poor connection gets HOT. Bill W's Ghost.

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

It might have to do with arcing .. I do believe there is less arcing at the switches and contacts with pos. ground .. kinda like a light switch in your home If you use the white instead of the black for the switch it arcs more ..

Pepsi dude,
Don't be offended, I couldn't resist this: tomorrow I will reverse the leads on my stick welder and see if my welding is better/worse. Bill W.'s Ghost

 

[dumb person]

Think the air is relatively neutral but near waterfalls it is supposed to be slightly negatively charged? according to something i read somewhere a long time ago anyway..

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

Think the air is relatively neutral but near waterfalls it is supposed to be slightly negatively charged? according to something i read somewhere a long time ago anyway..

I like your humor Tell me, does a compass point south in your world?
Ponder this, if you stand on the equator, dooes a compass spin? Bill W's Ghost

 

[Tom Wesenberg]

Think the air is relatively neutral but near waterfalls it is supposed to be slightly negatively charged? according to something i read somewhere a long time ago anyway..

Speaking of electrical flow, I kept getting recharged yesterday.

It was time for my car's oil change and I was searching for the automotive section while pushing a cart in a newly remodeled store yesterday. I'd never heard of this happening before, but as I pushed the cart on the tile floor the rubber wheels kept building up a static charge and about every 100 feet my hands sparked to the metal on the cart handle.

 

[steve s]

The Skinned Knuckles article "Why Negative Ground?" I referred to above was the Sept. 2009 issue, #398. The simple question about a relatively modern occurrence was asked: Why did all remaining positive-ground U.S. manufacturers switch to negative-ground in 1956? The author summarizes,

"Much as I would like to announce that we have an answer, unfortunately just the opposite is true. Not only have I not obtained facts, but I am also puzzled beyond belief that the wide variety of automotive historians and curators whom I questioned could not come with a factual answer."

One U.K. electrical engineeer and museum curator who was queried on the subject replied, "You have opened a can of worms..."

The SK article includes a table showing ground usage by 35 car models since 1932. Twenty five of those used positive ground for at least part of their existence. The various models that became part of GM, except for Cadillac, always used negative ground. Similarly, Duesenberg, Essex, Stutz, and Reo. Cadillac switched from positive to negative ground after WWII. Hudson switched from negative to positive ground in 1934, and then back to negative in 1956. The "universal" switch to negative ground never occurred in the U.K. Nash Metropolitans remained positive ground, and allegedly some US car models made for export to the U.K. are still set up with positive ground.

The various bogus rationales supporting one or the other grounding usage that have been offered over the years, including the corrosion thing, are briefly reviewed. The fact is that in 1956 there was a sudden consensus that it would be a good idea to standardize, but exactly how and why that consensus emerged at that moment in time remains puzzlingly mysterious.

I think it's clear that there really is no strong argument to be made one way or the other, but standardization is a good idea, and, happily, it came to pass! Too bad Ford was on the wrong side of history, but it's no big deal.

Steve

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

Tom,
Most of the carts at our market have an old fashioned ground strap. Gregg, my son, while shopping for me, kept getting zapped when touching the metal shelf where the beans reside, no ******** his cart Bill W's Ghost

 

[awander]

It might have to do with arcing .. I do believe there is less arcing at the switches and contacts with pos. ground .. kinda like a light switch in your home If you use the white instead of the black for the switch it arcs more ..

I don't mean to be a smart-***, but that is absolutely not true. What's more, the power wiring in your home, being AC, HAS no polarity.

The reason the BLK is switched,and not the WHT, is that if switch the neutral, the wires coming from the light bulb or whatever are then BOTH HOT. Try it sometime....

Andy

 

[awander]

I have worked in the electronics industry for many years, and have never had or found a good explanation for + vs – grounding. Evan in the digital age there was the two schools “active low, and active high”. It really does not matter, it all comes down to standards, the auto industry chose negative ground. Some manufactures took a long time to change, some large truck manufactures were still using positive ground well into the 1980’s. Some heavy equipment manufactures still use positive ground, makes our lives interesting when we try to install electronics / communications equipment in them!

The "active low" preference in electronics, as I understood it, was because many of the early logic chips could sink a larger current than they could source. So it made sense to have the active state be "low". Of course, we are still taking about it as if "conventional" current was correct(positive to negative)

Andy

 

[john hamilton]

Didn't have anything to do with Henry. They thought this was the way physics worked back then.

Most engines were positive ground back then. Most independents were still positive ground as long as they lasted. Studebakers, Hudsons and my wife's International were positive in the mid-1950s.

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

We use our brain, which uses electrical impulses, to absorb myriads of Model A info and help here on The Barn. How many of us have positive ground brains and how many has negative ground brains?
Ponder this: Which system works BEST and WHY?
While waiting for your responses, I'm gonna' clean my cables and tighten my fuse holder. Bill W's Ghost