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Question:

automotive electrical wires?

in hooking up a hot wire from the battery to a toggle switch inside a vehicle, i ran a seperate ground wire to the body, there are 2 wires coming from the unit i need to hook to the toggle switch.how do i test to see which one of those is a hot wire? i am not too smart at this. ty kindly

Answer:

Are the wires the same color?, if so the best way is to take unit apart,identify the wire that is connected to the shell the bulb screws into, or is fastened to, that wire is the negative. The wire that is connected to the center of the shell is the hot', or positive wire, this wire is connected to the switch. remember to install a fuse of the appropriate size in the circuit. Hope this helps, good luck!
Depends on what your hooking up? Look at the unit where the wires go in and there may be a +(hot) or -(ground) marking, and the ground wire is usually black and the hot is usually red,orange or yellow.
a test lamp, connect clamp to your known good ground then touch the pencil type end to the hot. if it lights then thats your positive. do it opposite to test for a good ground .

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