Interenal Speaker Hookup(plus Others)

[shanenin]

I googled for this first, but am haveing trouble sifting thru the correct info, I found this link

http://www.pctechguide.com/tutorials/MBoard_Panel.htm

I always slowdown at this point in putting together my computers. for example the internal motherboard speaker, is the red or black positive(home wiring black is positive). I would guess the speaker would work even if I reversed it(I just read in the tutorial it does not matter).

also with the led connecters, are the colored wires positve, and the negative white(that is my hunch). According to the tutorial they say black is negative(opposite of house wiring), which I have no black wires.

I always manage to get it to work, but am never completely sure I am doing it correctly. Any insight would be appreciated :-)

[shanenin]

it seems to be white and black that are negative. I am just going to go with that idea till it does not work for me :-)

[jimras]

When you are dealing with wiring in the computer, black is USUALLY the negative and red the positive. Unlike house wiring, here you are using a positive and a negative.

[xxkbxx]

Trial by error

[cherokeechief]

as the rule, with speakers, black is always ground and red is positive.

[Aluvus]

On speakers, red is positive and black is negative. This is true of a number of DC devices. Virtually all speakers will work fine if the polarity is switched. The only time it's likely to matter is if you have 2 speakers outputing the same thing, but with opposite polarity. This can cause something like motion sickness.

Home power wiring has no negative (or positive), per se, because it is AC. It has hot (typically black), neutral (typically white), and ground (almost always green). In a perfect world, there would never be any voltage difference between neutral and ground. See Wikipedia. These are the US standards.

Edited September 19, 2005 by Aluvus

[uberpenguin]

The only time it's likely to matter is if you have 2 speakers outputing the same thing, but with opposite polarity.  This can cause something like motion sickness.

But it makes for some fun acoustic analysis.

Remember, folks, "positive" and "negative" are pretty much arbitrary as long as you're consistant (most circuits are analyzed in terms of a POSITIVE charge current just because of tradition). On a non-quantum level, electrical potential is only useful when talking about differences, so one point in space is said to have some voltage (positive or negative) WITH RESPECT to another point (perhaps ground, which is assumed to have zero voltage).

Of course you probably didn't want to hear that little tangent, so the point of the matter is, it doesn't really matter which way you hook up the speakers, so long as you always do it the same way. So yes, the document you read is correct that the PC speaker will work either way.

As for LEDs, those are wonky... Nobody seems to wire them the same way when it comes to case lamps. Just plug them in and see if they work. They are diodes; under normal operational voltage you won't damage anything by plugging them in the "wrong way."

-uberpenguin