Who knows how to check speaker wire polarity?
Ladies and gents, I'm in the middle of changing out TVs, both front and rear on our '04 Itasca Horizon 36GD with the C-7 330HP CAT. Now, a small amount of history here. Winne and Itasca, in that era...
Forum Discussion
Well Gang,
I most certainly appreciate all the input here with experience. Two things here. One, I'm not on the project at this moment. I had to break loose of it and head over to San Diego for some family business. I will be back on this project tomorrow, Friday, in the afternoon. Second, while I have an array of answers and potential ways of checking the polarity, I'm still confused on a couple of things.
1. Using the "Battery" thing to test is to me, confusing. You see, if you have two wires, ALREADY connected to a speaker, then, connect say, a 9V (or 1.5V) battery to those speaker tab connections, that will make the speaker cone PUSH OUT, or PULL IN, based on which way the batteries terminals are connected, right? If you reverse the batteries connections, you'll get the opposite reaction of the speakers cone, correct?
To me, that doesn't tell me ANYTHING accept which is the POS and which is the NEG of the speaker. Those two tests, to me, DO NOT reveal which is the positive and negative OF THE WIRES, leading to the speaker. And most speakers are labeled with a + or - on the connectors.
And, I had to extend the radio speaker wires with other wire that I had lying around. I used the same gauge but, both wires are the same color since that's all I had. I thought I some previous clarification on which wire was positive and which was negative but, in all the miles of wiring that I've done with both the 5.1 system and the stand-alone radio speaker wires, I goofed up and extended the radio wires with the same color wires.
So, to those that have stated that there are definite markings of wires for pos and neg, there AREN'T ANY on my wires. Both wires are the same, for positive and negative. Again, I've been all over youtube and the net looking for an answer here.
Some have said to use a voltmeter on low DC settings and turn the radio on to see what the meter says. Then, someone comes along and says that won't work because the signal being sent on the speaker wire is AN A/C signal so, checking with a D/C voltmeter won't work, man, this stuff is confusing. I can rebuild engines, brakes, weld, cabinet build, fabricate, do brain surgery on myself (almost) and more but, when it comes to electrical stuff like this, I'm just not at the top of my game.
So we are talking about two speakers, and not the full surround array. Hook them up and listen. Reverse the wires on one speaker and listen again. Choose the best of the two.
So far, without discounting any and all other answers, this one kind-a sounds like the most logical way to tell if the "same colored" speaker wires are hooked up correctly to each of the two radio speakers. When I get back home tomorrow afternoon, I'll dive back into this project and check this out. I'll let all who are interested, know what I found out. Thanks a heap for trying to help me here.
Scott
I most certainly appreciate all the input here with experience. Two things here. One, I'm not on the project at this moment. I had to break loose of it and head over to San Diego for some family business. I will be back on this project tomorrow, Friday, in the afternoon. Second, while I have an array of answers and potential ways of checking the polarity, I'm still confused on a couple of things.
1. Using the "Battery" thing to test is to me, confusing. You see, if you have two wires, ALREADY connected to a speaker, then, connect say, a 9V (or 1.5V) battery to those speaker tab connections, that will make the speaker cone PUSH OUT, or PULL IN, based on which way the batteries terminals are connected, right? If you reverse the batteries connections, you'll get the opposite reaction of the speakers cone, correct?
To me, that doesn't tell me ANYTHING accept which is the POS and which is the NEG of the speaker. Those two tests, to me, DO NOT reveal which is the positive and negative OF THE WIRES, leading to the speaker. And most speakers are labeled with a + or - on the connectors.
And, I had to extend the radio speaker wires with other wire that I had lying around. I used the same gauge but, both wires are the same color since that's all I had. I thought I some previous clarification on which wire was positive and which was negative but, in all the miles of wiring that I've done with both the 5.1 system and the stand-alone radio speaker wires, I goofed up and extended the radio wires with the same color wires.
So, to those that have stated that there are definite markings of wires for pos and neg, there AREN'T ANY on my wires. Both wires are the same, for positive and negative. Again, I've been all over youtube and the net looking for an answer here.
Some have said to use a voltmeter on low DC settings and turn the radio on to see what the meter says. Then, someone comes along and says that won't work because the signal being sent on the speaker wire is AN A/C signal so, checking with a D/C voltmeter won't work, man, this stuff is confusing. I can rebuild engines, brakes, weld, cabinet build, fabricate, do brain surgery on myself (almost) and more but, when it comes to electrical stuff like this, I'm just not at the top of my game.
So we are talking about two speakers, and not the full surround array. Hook them up and listen. Reverse the wires on one speaker and listen again. Choose the best of the two.
So far, without discounting any and all other answers, this one kind-a sounds like the most logical way to tell if the "same colored" speaker wires are hooked up correctly to each of the two radio speakers. When I get back home tomorrow afternoon, I'll dive back into this project and check this out. I'll let all who are interested, know what I found out. Thanks a heap for trying to help me here.
Scott
