Does the resistance wire in an electric water heater have a positive/negative terminal? Determine that.?

Question

which is the +ve and which is -ve?

Answer 1

Hot water heaters operate on AC, therefore positive/negative is meaningless. Heating elements are often shaped so they only fit a certain way, but in principle it wouldn't matter which terminal hooks to which wire.

Answer 2

If your electric heater works on 110 or 220 V(AC) then the answer is NO. And if it works on some lower DC voltage then again the answer is NO(for most of them, if no further circuit is used in parallel to the terminals). Since the resistance does not shows any change in its value(ohms or M ohms) to flowing electrons, so you can connect to any terminal. Since you asked for +ve and -ve then i guess you are using DC, so it hardly matters if you exchange the connections unless same terminals are used for powering up some other DC circuit see the example below

Fig 1(in this case you can exchange the terminals)
+ve -----------------
heater element |
-ve ------------------

Fig2(in this case you cannot exchange the terminals, if done it wil not affect the heating but LED will stop glowing)
+ve------------------0 -------
heater element | LED O
-ve-------------------0 -------

Answer 3

Pure resistance does not depend on polarity. However, if the water heater operates on DC, there's a slight chance it has a sacrificial anode to reduce corrosion. If that is the case, polarity could matter, so you'd need to read the instructions and/or markings on the power terminals. You also need to be sure the correct place is grounded.

Answer 4

A resistor has no terminal related to positive or negative it can be inserted into a circuit in any way you chose as long as each end is connected.

Answer 5

In general, resistors are all pole-inspecific. You can hook a resistor or resistance wire up forward or backward with the exact same effect on the system.