electrical short question
#1
03-05-2003, 09:39 PM
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electrical short question
A post I made in another thread got my curious, as I don't know much about electrical theory....
Let's say I had a short anywhere, side rear view mirror motor, power window motor, winshield wiper motor that was caused by water somehow getting into the motor. Would that just short out that respective motor, or would the entire electrical system of the vehicle be at jeopardy?
Sorry for the low level question, but I'm pretty curious...I stopped trying to understand electrical theory when someone knowledgeable told me that in reality electricity flows from negative to positive, as opposed to positive to negative, which is what I was taught back in school way back...
Let's say I had a short anywhere, side rear view mirror motor, power window motor, winshield wiper motor that was caused by water somehow getting into the motor. Would that just short out that respective motor, or would the entire electrical system of the vehicle be at jeopardy?
Sorry for the low level question, but I'm pretty curious...I stopped trying to understand electrical theory when someone knowledgeable told me that in reality electricity flows from negative to positive, as opposed to positive to negative, which is what I was taught back in school way back...
#3
03-05-2003, 11:48 PM
cpadpl,
A short in anything is going to take out the fuse on that circuit.
The power for something is fused either under the dash or under the hood.
The power might be shared with another load. i.e. the electric windows are the same fuse as the power moon roof and the power rear slider. If you had a problem with a short in the power window motor of the driver's side rear window, the fuse would be blown, thus none of the windows would work any more.
A short in a motor should take the fuse out, and not damage the wiring or any of the other loads on the circuit.
Now for the case where you tap power for something else on a circuit, and over load the wiring, then you could damage the wiring in the harness at any point, including the last part of the harness that all the items run on, but again only for that circuit.
So if for some reason you tap power for an AMP on to the circuit for the power windows and melt the wire from prolonged heavy current draw, the circuit for the head lights is still ok.
As for electricity flow in a circuit, what you learned is current flow in a circuit, what you were later told is electron flow in a circuit.
And what does this mean to you, squat unless you are building circuits with diodes in it
This is the reason a LED ( Light Emitting Diode ) actually has a pos and neg on it, where a incadensent bulb can be lit with pos and ground reversed. This is without getting into Tri-state LEDs
A short in anything is going to take out the fuse on that circuit.
The power for something is fused either under the dash or under the hood.
The power might be shared with another load. i.e. the electric windows are the same fuse as the power moon roof and the power rear slider. If you had a problem with a short in the power window motor of the driver's side rear window, the fuse would be blown, thus none of the windows would work any more.
A short in a motor should take the fuse out, and not damage the wiring or any of the other loads on the circuit.
Now for the case where you tap power for something else on a circuit, and over load the wiring, then you could damage the wiring in the harness at any point, including the last part of the harness that all the items run on, but again only for that circuit.
So if for some reason you tap power for an AMP on to the circuit for the power windows and melt the wire from prolonged heavy current draw, the circuit for the head lights is still ok.
As for electricity flow in a circuit, what you learned is current flow in a circuit, what you were later told is electron flow in a circuit.
And what does this mean to you, squat unless you are building circuits with diodes in it
This is the reason a LED ( Light Emitting Diode ) actually has a pos and neg on it, where a incadensent bulb can be lit with pos and ground reversed. This is without getting into Tri-state LEDs