I know I am going to use a small 12 Volt battery to operated my wedding horns.. BUT I was wondering since my car is 6 volt positive ground DO I have to insulate the 12 volt horn ground (which will be 12 volts ) The horns will have there own switch Just want to make sure nothing goes wrong before I wire it up this way .. Thanks..........
yeah I would say it has to be insulated... should be really easy, just mount the horns with nylon nuts and bolts with washers, and separate wires for power and ground...
I believe I read somewhere that the cassis can be used as a common ground for both systems since it carries no load. However, can you not mount the aux horns on a board and run the wiring between the battery, switch and horn then from horn to negative of the 12v power source??? Better yet just run the horns off a jumper pack and wire the whole thing to the acc plug on the jumper. The frame provides a floating gound, not a definitive earth conection. As such it is merely a node for electrons to travel on or through, Functionally it doesn't care which way the electrons flow and will conduct either or without much fuss. The electrons will flow the way they know.
As long as nothing else is connected to it....it does not matter which term of the batter you use.... Lets say the horns are used to being grounded....ok....with nothing else connected to them....the battery negative is a -6v away from that ground. Now....you hook up the 12V battery....you connect the neg to ground...and the postive to a button which will then go to the horns.... Nothing will blow up. The horns are operating off 12v. Just don't try to connect any of your other car components to the 12v battery. If you meas from the pos of your 12v to the neg of your 6v, you will have 18v.
I still would say play it safe.. isolate it... your looking at an extra 2 or so dollars for the nylon fasteners and wires....
I love it......fireworks in the spring time.....fried chicken and I helped.... Uh, its POSITIVE ground on the car and NEGATIVE ground on the horn....... Insulate the horn from touching ANYTHING metal in the car, hook up a separate ground and postive to the 12 v battery run your switch by cutting into either wire, then to the horn....beep beep....
Explained perfectly! You could even run the horns from a horn relay that is connected to the +12V and gets (the relay's coil) .grounded via a button to ground. The horns come off the horn relay contact terminal that gets +12V. Only fireworks are on the 5th of July!
To be safe I'd just make it a completely isolated circuit. Mount the horns so that they are insulated from the car's metal. run a ground wire from the horns to the battery. Run a wire from the battery to that set of horns horn button, wire to their horn relay and a wire from relay to horns and you are done. The relay should be mounted on the bracket that the horns are on and isolated from the car it's self. Easy to install and easy to take out when you get tired of messing with them. Just remember to charge the battery.
Lucy, you got some splainin to do. 6v+ and 12V - all playing their own tunes with a common ground. No sparks, no sploding batterys, no 4th of july, except in July, on the 4th. How do they do it????
a ground is a ground , pos to groud , neg to groud , still a ground you all are really making this complecated , i know several peaple runnuing there flat head starters on a 12v neg groud and runnuing the ignition qn 6v pos. ground as long as the right v batt is hooked the to right things no problem , simply a ground is a ground.
a ground is a ground pos or neg, ^^^by the way ,on your signature , because its not called a level head, the walls in you house are vertical right? and they are still flat and the photc looks like they are vertical not slanted
A horn is just a coil of wire and a diaphragm and will make noise no matter which way it is earthed as long as current is flowing, if you look at late model 2 wire horns you can hook them up either way and they will still make noise. In this case, i would mount up your 12v battery and take the positive to earth. Get a 6 volt relay, in most cases the terminal numbering is universal. Take 6v negative to terminal 85, connect terminal 86 to horn button which in turn will go to earth. Connect 12v nefative to terminal 30 and connect terminal 87 to your horns. So now we are using 6 volts to switch a 12 volt supply and you should have no hassles, other than the 12v battery will not be getting charged by the generator/alternator. There is also a way to do this using 2x 6 volt batteries in parallel, and then using relays to connect the batteries in series to give 12 volts while not affecting anything else while both batteries being charged off the generator. This way is a bit more involved circuit wise and best explained with a diagram, can be drawn up if required. Hope this helps, Chris.
Folks, if you're thinking you can't run two different voltages or even two different polarities on the same common chassis ground, then consider this. The home computers a lot of you are reading this message on have various bits and pieces operating on +12 volts, +5 volts, +3.3 volts, and -12 volts. And they're all driven by a collection of wires coming out of a single power supply with a single common chassis ground. It's really just a matter of wiring all of the various parts properly, you see.
What voltage you runing your popcorn popper on??? Uing 2 6V batterys seems to deal with all concerns.
Yes, but the common to either -v or +v is only 6v, need 12V to common. If he uses existing 6v for power supply 2 and new 12v for power supply 1, then he can use the horns that can connect directly to frame ground (common). And if someone wants to pop popcorn, they can use both battrees in series and get whopping 18V. Yes I too believe this is becoming something out of the movies. Jiffypop live on!
Your'e right, as i said in my earlier post, you can run 2x 6volt batteries in parallel which still gives 6v. By using relays you can put the 2 batteries into series giving 12v but not affecting the 6v operation of the car. Just like Kenworth trucks using a series/parallel switch which gives 24v starting only and 12v everything else.
Short answer... no, you can ground the - (neg) side of the 12V battery and switch the + (pos) side to operate the horn. There will be no interaction between the two voltage systems.
Alot of Incorrect info here in these posts NO switching to Negative ground Won't make your starter run backwards The Power Lead is Power Lead. + or - it does not matter There is only two components that won't work: Radio and Gas Gauge which are easy fixes. This horn issue is this simple: Isolate the one horn by running the Ground out of the First in the Power of the second. the Drop takes the 12 V splits in half to 2 6 volt horns Gas Gauge is fixed by changing to 59 Belvedere sender, or a GM aftermarket. same with the overdrive motor. People get crazy ideas about electricity sometimes. KEEP IT SIMPLE. If anybody thinks I am wrong, I will be more than happy to make a video of the working horns in mine.
this thread is so full of WRONG. I hope your government doesnt find out that you guys work on cars. They will shut us all down
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