Where is Brendan in this drift on discussion of "separate earths," ground, return and chassis etc.etc...? (-:
I have a basic understanding of matters electrical, but for most folk I suspect anything electrical can be looked upon as being part of a black art, which at best would seem to be simply off-putting..?
Perhaps when trying to help folk out it might be worth thinking of standardising terminology to some extent..?
My thinking would be to try to drop the terms ground or earth, when discussing vehicle circuitry given they seem to have more relevance to household and industrial electrical wiring systems, and as such may have no place in a motor vehicle electrics which in general are in no way connected to either the earth or ground... unless one has a trailing lead in an attempt to dissipate static build up..? (-:
The kiss principal works well for a simple thinker such as I, and as such, given that most folk will be aware of the positive and negative battery connections, the requirement to observe correct polarity, and additionally may well understand a simple light bulb circuit with a switch, then perhaps in discussions it might be worth adopting NEGATIVE as a standard term for the part of the circuits route back to the battery negative terminal...?
I used the term route in that unlike a simple circuit with one length of black wire connecting the "light bulb" directly to the battery negative, in a car chances are that to save on wiring costs it has ever been the habit to use the metal of the chassis or monocoque instead of a black wire from each and every electrical component returning directly to the battery.
In order for the chassis to perform as an electrical wire might, the battery negative connection is directly attached to the ideally clean/bare metalwork of the chassis.
If the above makes any sense then this possible cost cutting measure introduces potential for poor connections to develop over time, given corrosion of chassis is quite normal, and never more so if you drill a hole through the painted metalwork to achieve a point of reasonable electrical connection, and in the process have removed the layer of metal protection which provided a good electrical connection when new but may well be the reason for so many vehicle wiring faults as corrosion sets in to the bared metal...?
Yeah just another ramble, but hopefully may present a route to basic understanding for those who are put off by unnecessary complexity relating to seemingly confusing and different terminology. to describe the same thing.....Wotcha fink..?
