Resistors are a non polarized component. Put them ANYWHERE in the circuit if you are adding them in series to restrict it.
Think of a long garden hose turned up full blast and you want to slow it down… where on the hose do you step to restrict the water (electrons)?
Anywhere along it’s length.
Think of an electric circuit as a big electrical hose connecting positive to negative… a big loop…
Greg
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
!!!
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
!!!
Greg yes, I know how resistors work. I was asking because I didn’t know if it mattered.
I can understand your concern. Depending on how a circuit is laid out, I think it could.
For example, if the negative battery pole also serves as a “ground reference,” and you put a resistor in its path, you can change the reference potential at the subsequential circuits that may also be pulling from the negative battery pole elsewhere in the circuit or associated circuits.
I don’t know that this would happen here, but believe there could be cases where this matters.
Sorry I should have qualified it,
In this case it does not matter.
But of course Todd is right, in some cases it could matter, for instance if you installed it into the ground line of the International Space station, and there was a solar flare, the Russian cosmonauts could have a temporary magnetic anomaly while docking, throwing off the guidance system, and fly out of orbit into the sun.
There you go, world war 3. That was a close one.
Greg
I am so glad you caught that. It is so important to Whirled Peas.
TOC
Todd yes, that’s why when I originally asked, I stated in my question if the negative or positive were common. I did go to tech school for electronic and computer technology, so I didn’t need the explanation about what a resistor is. I just wanted an answer if it mattered what battery lead it was inserted into.
Thanks TOC.
I went and dug out one of Walsham’s old SSI boards (EARLY version with resistors).
His are in the + lead. When we just used resistors, we didn’t care, especially since all Walsham’s stuff switched ground and not power.
The ones I have with just the resistors work fine either side…but…most I ever used was 14.4V.
I dug out old instruction sheets, of course they have no photos, just a square for the board.
Interesting on this old one (made before Soundtraxx allowed that pins 4 and 2 worked for battery connection), there is no way to get power to the resistors until you take the wires with a plug on the end (oh, 5-6" long wire) that are soldered into the board to the resistors, and plug it into a socket probably 5/8" away from where the wires come out where input traction battery power resides.
One of the issues everybody had with him was he made a run of boards, then changed it, made another run…so nothing was ever the same.
Tracks, placement, size of board.
Drove us nutz.
Then this board has 5 wires out.
Two white ones for motor (no way to identify…have to swap if backwards), small black and red to the little battery plug, then a red wire with the two whites that went to pin 4, positive battery power back into the board to power the opto…instead of internally doing it on the circuit board.
We’d always whack the little plug, connect to 4 and 2, then internally jumper red.
TOC