Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 at 11:33AM :
In Reply to: Voltage Regulator + or - posted by T-roy on Tuesday, August 27, 2002 at 9:50PM :
A mechanical voltage regulator doesn't care. You can change polarity if you have an old-fashioned DC generator by simply polarizing the generator in the direction you want. If you're changing over from one grounding scheme to the other and you simply swap the battery polarity without re-polarizing the generator there's a good chance it will power up trying to charge the battery the wrong way, which might damage the generator or regulator because of the high current surge.
In most cases, a transistorized regulator can only be used for the polarity it was designed for, and will get instantly fried if you hook it up backwards. I've personally never seen a positive-ground system with a transistorized regulator.
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