I'm not an electrical engineer either, but I would venture to say that
there is no advantage one way or another if an electrical circuit, or
system for that matter, is positive, or negative earth ground. The only
difference is that the direction of the flow of electrons is opposite
between the two. For that reason, things that are designed to have
electrons flowing through them in a given direction (things that are
sensitive to polarity) must be grounded accordingly.
As far as I know, today the world seems to have pretty much settled on
negative-earth grounding. The thing that I find interesting about this
system is that people commonly think of the positive side as being the
"hot" side, or the business end where the electrons come from. It makes
sense to think of things moving from positive to negative. In truth,
though, electrons actually flow from the ground, or negative side, to
the positive side.
Someone once told me that there is actually something that does flow
from the positive to the negative side of a circuit, and that is a
"hole", or a positively charged particle that somehow shows up when an
electron gets moved. I didn't really get an good explanation of what a
hole is besides that, and I'm not sure if it is even anything more than
a theoretical particle. But I digress...
Mark Rudnicki
Flüeler Roland, FLO wrote:
> --MimeMultipartBoundary
>
> A preliminary remark first: I have almost no knowledge about
> electricity. It
> and its applications just belong to the great many black boxes I'm
> happily
> living with. Still, sometimes even users of black boxes start
> wondering.
>
> When in a recent discussion with a friend of mine I mentioned that my
> Tiger
> Mk I has a "negative earth" electric system my friend laughed at me
> and said
> that all cars are like this. I wouldn't want to question this but told
> him
> merely that from what I read about Tigers so far the matter was
> presented in
> a way that made me believe that negative earth (either on the Tiger or
> even
> in general) is (or was then) something "special". Nothing special to
> him
> however! Still, why would one talk about negative earth (e.g. on my
> car's
> clock where it reads "for negative earth") at all if it is clear and
> standard to everyone? And then: Why does another friends series II
> Alpine
> have the grounding of the battery on the positive pole? BTW: He
> couldn't
> help. Just another user of black boxes!
>
> So, is there a difference between having a car's electric system on
> "positive" or "negative earth"? Are there pros and cons? When and why
> did
> Rootes change from one system to the other?
>
> Thanks for enlightening me!
>
> Roland
> B 9471941
> in Switzerland
> e-mai: roland.flueeler@cantrade.ch
> --MimeMultipartBoundary--
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