Is it always good to be positive? The short answer is, “NO”! Can we say the same about being Negative?
Are you positive, you should be! The other day I decided to set up a solar charger to keep the battery in the Gold Wing topped off. I had a regular trickle charger attached to the battery but it didn’t seem to be doing the job. I checked the voltage from the trickle charger and it was not charging, so I discarded it.
I have two small solar chargers. I decided to attach them to a piece of wood so I could position them in the sun, which would provide a charge to the bike’s battery. I already have a plug on the bike that goes to the battery, so I needed to build a connecting wire that would connect to the two solar chargers, and into one plug to connect to the battery.
I like to do my projects right the first time. I gathered up the necessary parts, set up a work table and retrieved the tools that I would need. I then made a drawing of how the wires would connect to each of the three plugs. I checked the positive and negative posts at each plug three times before I started the work.
I had to cut some wires and then solder them back together making sure the polarity was correct. Basically, I had to bring the wires from two solar panels into one plug, which would then connect to the Bike’s battery.
I am very proud of my work on this project and I followed a wood working rule, “Measure twice cut once”. I checked polarity several times and verified each on my drawing before connecting and soldering. Photo to follow.
What? You want to know when it is not good to be positive. Come on, everyone knows that answer. Ok, a teaching moment is upon us. One example and then back to the story at hand. If you were going to do something and when you see the competition you say “I can’t do that”, then you are positive that you can’t, it is not good to be positive that you can’t.
Project completed, tools and table put away, it was time to connect the chargers and then connect to the battery. The solar chargers have blue lights indicating that they are charging. I connected them to the bike and set the panels in the sun. To my surprise the blue lights were not lit!
Something was wrong, I disconnected the chargers from the battery and the lights came on. Odd, I thought. I then checked the polarity of the plug from the battery, it was what I had on the drawing. I checked the polarity from the chargers and the polarity was backwards!
Somehow, as careful as I was, reading my drawing several times, I reversed the polarity. My drawing was correct, I somehow did not follow the drawing! This is a good example of when being positive (on the wrong post) is not good!
Stop laughing, you probably messed up some projects in your life. No, I am not crying, I have something in my eye!
Check polarity twice, connect once, is still a good plan!
Don Ford
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