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Expert Q Ren Molnar Q&A Archive
Top > Electrical > Technique

Question:

When you put the wires on the two screws on a lamp in the receptacle where the bulb screw in, is there a negative and positive side?
If so how can you tell on the wires when they are the same color.

Answer:

Wiring is one of those jobs that normally has all the decisions made for you. On the lamp, one screw is white and the other is coloured (brass) and you soon learn that we always put white to white and colour to colour. When the insulation on the wire is coloured, you often find a white streak or white print on the side which is meant to be white. If you're wiring in a male plug, and one prong is wider than the other, that's the one that is connected to the white lug (screw) on the fixture. Negative and positive terminals are usually associated with direct current such as you find in the car while house wiring is alternating current. We could fill books describing the differences.

Answered By: Ren Molnar

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