Red, Black, White Power wires???

[lettuce]

I have a 15khz chassis board that has Red, Black and White wires for the power connector, now i would have assumed that the red was for live but it appears to be attached to the metal frame of the monitor, so that must be ground right??  Is there a rule of thumb as to what wire is what

[MonMotha]

White would be neutral by Amercian standards, and hot is commonly used for black.  Using red for ground is...erm, non-standard.  The Europeans would typically use blue for neutral and brown for hot.  All areas have pretty much standardized on green (with a preferred, but optional outside of Europe, yellow stripe) for ground.

Most designs don't care which is hot or neutral, and if you're using an isolation transformer (make darn sure you are if the monitor requires one, otherwise you'll blow something up), the distinction is meaningless.

Where the heck was this thing made?

[lettuce]

The chassis is a, Pentranic CRT Chassis CH-288-S26A. Guess its fairly old but it brand new stock, the box has a 'Made in Canada sticker on it, so that might explain the red wire for ground? Im based in the UK by the way and yeah are plugs are wired yellow/green for earth, blue for neutral, and brown for live.

Apparently, The chassis is free voltage and operates on 100-240 VAC - there is no need for an isolation transformer

So in this instance id what to wire the yellow/green (earth) to the red on the monitor, Brown (live) to black, and Blue (neutral) to White??

[MonMotha]

Well, being made in Canada certainly explains using black/white for hot/neutral,  but red for ground still makes little sense.  Are you sure it goes to the frame?

Do you have a picture of this?  It's usually fairly obvious what does what based on where things go.

[lettuce]

Heres a pic....



You can see where the white and black wires go into the PCB, it actually says AC IN, now i thought any sane person would have also printed a '+' & '-' on the pcb aswell but not so 

[elkameleon]

That's a ground. With AC current it doesn't matter how its hooked up, cause current switches from positive to negative 60 times a second (in the USA, 50 across the pond).

[smalltownguy]

Yep, center pin is ground. White is neutral, black is hot. My 7400 looks like that, but it uses a 3 pin plug on the board, oriented the same way.

To be honest, I'd strip that wire jacket, cut off that 3 pin connector, and install a standard 2 pin connector on there with the hot and neutral. I'd leave the ground wire as a separate wire since that's the way most classic arcade cab wiring harnesses are setup anyway.

Or, just make yourself a pigtail adapter, like I did:

[lettuce]

Yep, center pin is ground. White is neutral, black is hot. My 7400 looks like that, but it uses a 3 pin plug on the board, oriented the same way.

To be honest, I'd strip that wire jacket, cut off that 3 pin connector, and install a standard 2 pin connector on there with the hot and neutral. I'd leave the ground wire as a separate wire since that's the way most classic arcade cab wiring harnesses are setup anyway.

Or, just make yourself a pigtail adapter, like I did:

Thanks for the info. I think ill leave the ground wired up though as im in the UK and are plugs are 3 pin with ground being the 3rd pin so it makes sense to leave it the way it is?

[lilshawn]

that definately doesn't look like a standard wiring color scheme, but it may have just been some mixup in ordering the wire. 

[Mysterioii]

That's a ground. With AC current it doesn't matter how its hooked up, cause current switches from positive to negative 60 times a second (in the USA, 50 across the pond).

Some may disagree with me, but they're not purely interchangeable, that's why we have polarized plugs.  Yeah current switches direction but it's only being driven on one line, the hot line.  Neutral is just neutral.  On a properly wired wall outlet you should be able to lick your fingers and grab the ground and neutral wires without fear.  Yeah we didn't always have polarized plugs and direction doesn't really matter when you're just lighting a light bulb or running a hair dryer but you don't want to go earth-grounding your hot wire...   Nor do you want your hot wire connected to chassis ground on any of your appliances.  Then you're at a shock hazard if you ever touch the chassis and are in your bare feet or touch something like a sink fixture that's properly grounded.  If you're on the other side of an isolation transformer then yeah that's another story.

Several years back I delivered some very expensive test equipment for military circuit cards to a company we were partnering with in the Netherlands, and they have non-polarized plugs.  When they plugged it in ("backwards" to what the supplies were expecting) it blew the surge supression circuitry in the power supplies because they had been wired on the assumption that the plugs would be polarized like ours.

Some discussion...

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=445490
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070722150319AAbafB2

[elkameleon]

That's a ground. With AC current it doesn't matter how its hooked up, cause current switches from positive to negative 60 times a second (in the USA, 50 across the pond).

Some may disagree with me, but they're not purely interchangeable, that's why we have polarized plugs.  Yeah current switches direction but it's only being driven on one line, the hot line.  Neutral is just neutral.  On a properly wired wall outlet you should be able to lick your fingers and grab the ground and neutral wires without fear.  Yeah we didn't always have polarized plugs and direction doesn't really matter when you're just lighting a light bulb or running a hair dryer but you don't want to go earth-grounding your hot wire...   Nor do you want your hot wire connected to chassis ground on any of your appliances.  Then you're at a shock hazard if you ever touch the chassis and are in your bare feet or touch something like a sink fixture that's properly grounded.  If you're on the other side of an isolation transformer then yeah that's another story.

Several years back I delivered some very expensive test equipment for military circuit cards to a company we were partnering with in the Netherlands, and they have non-polarized plugs.  When they plugged it in ("backwards" to what the supplies were expecting) it blew the surge supression circuitry in the power supplies because they had been wired on the assumption that the plugs would be polarized like ours.

Some discussion...

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=445490
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070722150319AAbafB2

Let me rephrase, for OUR purposes and more than likely, due to how the switching power supply in the monitor works, its not going to matter two ways from sunday which way its plugged in. The only thing  stopping you is that darn 3-prong plug!