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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / May 2006



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Need to know polarity of RAYOVAC 4.5V battery (840,841)

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toronado455 - 29 May 2006 00:43 GMT
Hi everyone,

I was testing my 4.5V RayOVac battery and I pulled the keyed 4-pin
connector off the wires to test it and forgot to check which way the
connector is keyed before I did. Darn it!

Now I don't know which way to put the wires back into the connector
plug. This is for the Tanzania MB but the MB header doesn't indicate
polarity. Of course normally that wouldn't matter since the connector
plug is keyed.

It's either:

RED Positive (+)
KEY
OPEN
BLACK Negative (-)

or

BLACK Negative (-)
KEY
OPEN
RED Positive (+)

I can always buy a new battery to find out but if anyone here knows I
would appreciate it. Thanks.
D. Kirkpatrick - 29 May 2006 04:18 GMT
> I can always buy a new battery to find out but if anyone here knows I
> would appreciate it. Thanks.

Or for about $10 bucks a meter at Radio Shack.
toronado455 - 29 May 2006 07:01 GMT
> > I can always buy a new battery to find out but if anyone here knows I
> > would appreciate it. Thanks.
>
> Or for about $10 bucks a meter at Radio Shack.

How is a meter going to show me the polarity of the MB header?
Michael Black - 29 May 2006 07:21 GMT
>> > I can always buy a new battery to find out but if anyone here knows I
>> > would appreciate it. Thanks.
>>
>> Or for about $10 bucks a meter at Radio Shack.
>
> How is a meter going to show me the polarity of the MB header?

But if the connector is keyed, then that means it will only go in
one way.  Is that the case?  If so, then the color coding is likely
good, and read is positive and black is ground.

Maybe it's a wrong guess, but I'd treat it as pretty certain that
negative goes to ground.  For a RAM backup, that seems a pretty
safe assumption (other applications, it might not be).  Hence, you
can find a known ground point, if nothing else where the power supply
ground hits the motherboard, and then use the ohmmeter function of
the meter to determine which of the leads on the connector goes
to that ground point.  That's negative, and then the other lead
would be positive.

Other things that would be an indicator is if an electrolytic
capacitor is connected across the battery.  Those are polarized,
and hence whichever lead goes to the lead on the capacitor that
is marked "+" is where the plus side of the battery goes.

Are you sure there's no not-easily-readable marking on the connector,
or on the motherboard itself?

 Michael
toronado455 - 29 May 2006 08:18 GMT
> >> > I can always buy a new battery to find out but if anyone here knows I
> >> > would appreciate it. Thanks.
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> Are you sure there's no not-easily-readable marking on the connector,
> or on the motherboard itself?

There is no marking on the MB or the connector. The polarity of the
battery is known. What is unknown is the polarity of the MB header.
 
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