wire coloring for 12v cigarette plug extendors

[matthewkristof]

this might be the stupidest question i've ever asked but...

i have an extender that adds extra 12v plugs and USB jacks to any cigarette plug. i want to hard wire this to my truck. there are two wires that house the unit: one solid black, the other is solid black with a red line.

which one is negative, which one is positive?

i searched on plain ole google.com and all i came up with are general appliances for the home, and even then, they varied between types. didn't know if it was any different than wiring in cars, and not about to blow up my car on account of me not asking.

thanks in advane for help

 

[rainman353]

With 12V one is ground and one is power.

The black wire is most likely the ground and just needs to be grounded to metal somewhere and then the red will be the power wire and can be wired into a fuse or another power source but a fuse is usually easiest.

 

[matthewkristof]

thank you.

out of curiosity, what would happen if i wired it incorrectly...blow a fuse or torch my rig?

 

[rainman353]

I'm not an electrician or an electrical engineer but usually if you wire it to a fuse and you mess something up it will blow the fuse so that it doesn't screw something up.

Worst case scenario you ruin the 12v plug you're trying to hook up but things can go wrong that are unexplainable. I'd go to autozone, pepboys, etc. and find a cheap 12v plug that you can hardwire to try it out first just to be on the safe side.

The fuse is there to keep bad things from happening.

 

[matthewkristof]

thanks for all the help...gonna do this later in the week...waiting for the switches in the mail.

on a personal level, when connecting wires to the switches, do you guys prefer hot glue gun or soldering? i know that the latter is probably better but wanted to know if hot glue gun is suffient enough.