I know that for the circuit to complete it doesn't, but I'm wondering if it matters for the health of the components.
So, like this circuit, if the momentary switch has power going through it as opposed to it being the ground, is there a difference there?
What you have drawn looks like it has the positive connected to the coil terminal on the solenoid and the switch and a negative to the other side of the switch, if that is the case you are going to have some big sparks at your VERY momentary switch when it completes the short circuit.
To your original question it won't matter provided there is an actual negative terminal on the solenoid for the coil that you can connect between the switch and chassis ground. Hopefully that is clear.
This solenoid I used was weird, It didn't ground through the screws on the base, but had a separate ground terminal. Led to some weird wiring that I'm mis-remembering. It works though. Worked long enough to start my outboard.
It technically does not matter for this kind of device, wiring is just a lot simpler one way sometimes and the other way sometimes. (Imagine ground side switching a starter.)
Lets say you have a simple light circuit consisting of battery, light bulb, switch, and wiring. If I remember correctly, if you put the switch on negative wire you have less of a current load on the switch than if you have the switch on the positive side.
In your starter circuit drawing feeding the control side of the solenoid you have a light load for a short time, so my point above isn't really a factor.
The selonoid won't care about polarity nor will it care if the switch closes the positive or the negative.
What you have drawn looks to be a direct short at the momentary button though.
gearheadmb said:Lets say you have a simple light circuit consisting of battery, light bulb, switch, and wiring. If I remember correctly, if you put the switch on negative wire you have less of a current load on the switch than if you have the switch on the positive side.
Amps don't just disappear.
Your drawing would be fine, other than the loop you've drawn in red under the solenoid. What you have done there is bypass the coil in the solenoid, and when you push the button, you will melt the weakest part of the circuit.
Lose that loop, and as long as it doesn't ground through the case of the solenoid, it should work. Power in to one of the terminals, controlled ground from the other.
gearheadmb said:Lets say you have a simple light circuit consisting of battery, light bulb, switch, and wiring. If I remember correctly, if you put the switch on negative wire you have less of a current load on the switch than if you have the switch on the positive side.
In your starter circuit drawing feeding the control side of the solenoid you have a light load for a short time, so my point above isn't really a factor.
Current is I = V/R where V is the voltage and R is the resistance of the circuit. The resistance of the circuit is going to be the same whether the switch is before or after the load. This is true if the load is a light or a coil in a relay.
When using a mechanical switch, as opposed to a transistor or some other solid state device, the switch can be wired on whatever side of the load is convienient.
Toyman01 + Sized and said:The selonoid won't care about polarity nor will it care if the switch closes the positive or the negative.
It will if it has a shared power or shared ground, though. That is to say, if it uses the same power input for the switched side and the coil side.
Convention is that you switch the positive in a negative ground system. This is safer because you have less possibility for shorts when switch is open and if someone goes to work on something they will likely expect switch off to mean most of the circuit is not positively charged.
Jcamper
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I'm going by his wiring diagram which is admittedly a little funky. He also stated that it had a separate ground terminal and did not ground through the base. Most marine electrics are like that because they are frequently mounted to fiberglass. At that point, the coil won't care. Feed it voltage and it's going to do its thing.
By his description, he has something like this.
And if you ever need to draw something like this, TinyCad is pretty awesome.
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