shortening dew strip leads

[astronymonkey]

Hi ,

hopefully this will be a simple query but I have some dew srips and i want to make their leads shorther. Is there any polarity in these things or can any of the two wires be connected to posotive ?

Im thinking that they are just some sort of resistor so the direction of the current shouldnt matter but i wanted to check first.

Thanks

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Mine & the only ones I've seen, are just some enclosed resistance, so yes either polarity will work.

[michaelmorris]

I shortened some of mine a while ago.  Whilst I'm sure people are correct that polarity isn't an issue, I used a meter to check the polarity was the same as the original.

[Davey-T]

Shortened mine recently, bought some coloured plugs from Maplins and colour coded them with heat shrink sleeving, well it's been very cloudy lately 

Put the polarity back the same, bit fiddly soldering them on.

Dave

[RayD]

I shortened mine with right angled connectors to go in to mount hub.  Easy enough job, but the cables are fairly light gauge so can be a little tricky.

I personally would observe polarity as there may be some short circuit protection (diode) fitted.

[astronymonkey]

Thanks everyone thats been really helpful. I m going to try to keep the existing polarity and i hqve a multimeter so should be able to check. Out of interest does the centre pin ultimately lead to the posotive terminal on the battery or the negative ?

Thanks

[RayD]

The centre pin on a controller is typically +