WHY are Nortons Positive Ground?

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highdesert

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Was the entire british auto and motorcycle industry always positive ground?
Did this ever change?
Some particular reason as to WHY?
curious, thanks
 
Because electrons "flow better" from negative to positive, which means the spark will jump with less resistance from the center electrode being negatve to a positive ground. This worked when magnetos were giving weak 15Kv sparks, with modern coils producing in excess of 40Kv, having a positive or a negative ground is somewaht less critical.

The reson to switch to negative ground is because 99% of vehicules are that way now and if some polarity sensitive devices are added like LED bulbs, you can use stock ones and ot have to ind that elusive and more expensive LED bulb made only for old Limey bikes and cars.

Jean
 
Boy, I have never heard that electrons like to flow better from negative to positive. That's a new one to me. It was probably because they could use the zenier diode as a voltage regulator without insulating it from ground.

Dave
69S
 
Lots of stuff used to be positive ground. US trucks, busses, trains, boats, Fords, Jeeps, Internationals, tractors. A lot changed over due to electronics being offered in negative ground and to make things more standard. I think off the top of my head Ford changed about 1955 but my 1957 Jeep was still positive ground. It's safer to jump cars these days.
 
The polarity of ground IS NOT AN ISSUE WHEN JUMP STARTING.

Just keep Red to Positive, Black to negative.

Electron THEORY is just that, "theory".

Whether the holes flow to the poles or vice versa is debateable just as synthetics and petro-stuff is argued as best for old bikes.
 
I heard it was due to corrosion in positive carrying poor quality copper wire.

Does this mean that modern negative earthed vehicles are attracted to Nortons?

(sorry, couldn't help that)
 
The direction of electron flow is from a point of negative potential to a point of positive potential. As electrons vacate their atoms during electron current flow, positively charged atoms (holes or frijoles) :roll: result. The flow of electrons in one direction causes a flow of positive charges. The direction of the positive charges is in the opposite direction of the electron flow (known as conventional current.) All of the electrical effects of electron flow from negative to positive, or from a higher potential to a lower potential, are the same as those that would be created by a flow of positive charges in the opposite direction. Therefore, it is important to realize that both conventions are in use and that they are essentially equivalent.
 
DogT said:
Boy, I have never heard that electrons like to flow better from negative to positive. That's a new one to me. It was probably because they could use the zenier diode as a voltage regulator without insulating it from ground.

Dave
69S
Click to expand...

If you look at old tube circuits, the plate voltage was B+ (positive) and the cathode negative, the electron flow was from the cathode to the anode or minus to plus, this is theory and that is how tubes work, current will not flow if tubes are reverse polarized, a spark can and will occur wheter the center electrode is positive or negative, now the Brits having invented the tube must have felt compelled to make ignition systems comforming to his theories and that is probably why they used a positive ground :wink:

Jean
 
I feel the reason there are so many negative feelings about positive ground is that we have seen many more devices with negative ground. This makes us positive that we must use negative as ground, Positive ground should not be seen as a negative. Positive has been used for many years without negative effects, And negative has been used also with positive results. :roll:
 
highdesert said:
Was the entire british auto and motorcycle industry always positive ground?
Did this ever change? Some particular reason as to WHY? curious, thanks
Click to expand...

NOt sure about other makes but Nortons at least were negative earth up to around the end of WW2 or soon after, my WD16H is negative.
Why the change - don't know, but all this talk of electrons is misleading, smoke is what we are dealing with. :roll:
 
Actually the problems with jump start had more to do with people than the design. On a clean modern battery you can easily identify positive and negative. Batteries used to be acid filled tar tops and in snow country were often covered with dirt and crap. The wire colors were often both black and when they were new the battery had red paint on the terminal which was often gone. Think doing this at 20 below zero and in bad light and you can see why errors were made. I have seen a battery on a tractor blow in the woods while jumping. We had to wash the guy's eyes out in a nearly frozen stream.
I seem to remember hearing about folks hooking up the jumper backwards and reverse charging the battery. I don't recall what happens then but I'm sure it would not charge with polarity reversed.
But as far as jumping a battery it would be fine if you do it right.
 
There are two opposite theories of electron flow. Conventional theory=positive to negative. Electron theory=negative to positive. As I was taught, some forty-six years ago, it depended which side of the pond you were on. The Brits used the conventional theory, the Yanks used the electron theory. This may help:

http://www.mi.mun.ca/users/cchaulk/eltk1100/ivse/ivse.htm# Click on the boxes, conventional and electron.
 
The reason Nortons have a positive ground is the same reason that dirvers in the UK and former territories drive on the left, neither is right or wrong it just boils down to the theory you subscribe to hole flow or the electron flow.

RS
 
RoadScholar said:
The reason Nortons have a positive ground is the same reason that dirvers in the UK and former territories drive on the left,
Click to expand...


There is a reason for that, it has to do with being right hand , holding your sword and riding your donkey :p
 
I have a friend doing a late 40's Merc with a flat head all stock and positive ground.An idea that's been around a while.
The best explanation I have heard is this:
A spark plug is 10% easier to run using positive ground, now it was also well know that all the rest of the system suffers from positive ground. Much more than 10% as well so for the want of a good spark the rest of the machine suffered. And for the lack of three feet of red wire on each bike Lucas became the Prince. There is a lot of power to be found if you can get a good spark still true today.
 
ntst8 said:
NOt sure about other makes but Nortons at least were negative earth up to around the end of WW2 or soon after, my WD16H is negative.
Why the change - don't know, but all this talk of electrons is misleading, smoke is what we are dealing with. :roll:
Click to expand...

As Iain says, earlier Nortons were -ve earth as were all of the magdyno equipped British bikes that I've come across. I had always understood that the UK car industry changed to +ve earth in the 1950s as it reduced chassis corrosion on the earthing points (and most of those cars needed all the help they could get in reducing corrosion) :)
 
highdesert said:
Was the entire british auto and motorcycle industry always positive ground?
Click to expand...

No.
Positive earth/ground appeared to be adopted (by Norton, at least) after WWII.

highdesert said:
Did this ever change?
Click to expand...

The Triumph factory (Meriden) changed over to negative earth/ground for the 1979 production year, when they started fitting Lucas Rita electronic ignition systems. Norton rotaries were negative ground as far as I know, but the Commando electrical system never changed.
 
Does positive or negative ground have any bearing on choosing a sparkplug or coil? There are plugs with platinum or iridium wire electrodes. There are coils with single and dual outputs. Sparks are the flow of electricity across the gap, however you define it, but they do seem to be constructed with that flow being in one particular direction.
'Conventional' current is electronic's absurd little secret. It's a lot like the centigrade scale Anders Celsius devised with water's freezing point being 100deg and boiling point as zero because he thought heat was actually the absence of coldness.
 
The polarity of the coil primary determines the polarity of the initial rising edge of spark plug voltage. Making the plug negative has an advantage in that slightly less voltage is required to jump the gap. It's not a significant factor, and dual ended coils (one positive, one negative) work just fine. Ground polarity has no effect on this.

The historical choice of ground polarity could very well have been a coin toss or a function of assembly convenience for all we know. Whatever polarity the first generator had, turning in whatever direction, or whatever terminal on the battery was closest to the chassis could have set the precedent. I doubt we'll ever know.
 
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