Connectors: Which is male and which is female?

In my world we call the connector male or female by the center electrical connection.  Ignoring the plastic housing or anything around it.

So do we have to call connectors "they" or "them" now? 

shawnj72 said:

PLUG=MALE  SOCKET=FEMALE..  It doesn't self Identify as anything else.

You would Never Ever even if it has plastic, or shield  around it Have the plug end Positive or electrified in a PLUG. 

Better stay away from solar power, then. Every panel has both a socket and A PLUG (the horror!) coming off of it. Both are "electrified." Question here is which is positive and which negative.

shawnj72 said:

You see this a lot on DC circuits.. But Standard the Female of the socket will always Be the Battery Positive. But Stuff coming out of third world countries will have their own ideas i recon. 

Not sure Where you got that Idea. Which "Standard?" While it's Common in modern Automobile systems, First World telecom systems usually run with a Positive Ground, and the "Hot" is -52 VDC from the Battery Negative. A lot of older Cars used positive ground. NEC allows either side of a DC PV Circuit to be grounded, or Ungrounded (exposed Metal is required to Be Grounded).

Don't know why you think the contact Gender matters. Solar connectors are Shrouded, so well Protected from inadvertent contact. They can't be compared to common AC Wall Plugs.

mike95490 said:

shawnj72 said:

PLUG=MALE  SOCKET=FEMALE..  It doesn't self Identify as anything else.

You would Never Ever even if it has plastic, or shield  around it Have the plug end Positive or electrified in a PLUG.  #1 Reason to not have a Plug coming off a generator or anything electrified..

As a Rule keep the positive or electrified side of things Female and the Male-PLUG Receives the Juice or positive current from the FEMALE-SOCKET.  Just as you would your plug and receptacle in your house. When the PLUG-MALE is disconnected From the socket-Female it is de-Energized.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.. ;-)

Wrong.

a) the line that is not grounded, should generally be the socket side. (often, in a car, - is chassis ground, leaving the + conductor dangerous and thus, should be a socket.

b) with AC, the energized side, should be socket side (like an ordinary wall socket) (hot & neutral)

c) with solar panels, with + & - wires, you have to be careful and aware, your ill thought rule just failed you.

But I think I have been Very clear on the subject.. As far as solar Panels go I believe the Same Rules would apply coming FROM the Panel. The Battery Positive + being the socket side while the Negative - 0VDC being the plug Coming from the Panel. I can only assume you were referring to the connectors going to the panel and really in the end saying the same thing then ..Regards    

shawnj72 said:

Positive ground is Still Positive or the side with Energy.

If you believe that, you're way over your head here.

I hate to get in the middle of a good p***ing match but for my own edification, aren't we talking about (at least) two different concepts?

A source of power is a concept.  By convention, the source of power is a socket.  That could be an ac plug, or a dc cigarette type.  The plug includes both polarities.

The polarity of the power is a different concept.  An ac lighting socket (usually but not always) wires a grounded neutral to the wall of the socket, and the "hot" to a base terminal.  Both wires carry current.  Likewise, a dc circuit may (or not) have the negative or positive tied to a local ground.  Applying the notion of "energized" vs not in this context makes no sense to me.  Maybe someone can explain it to me?

Estragon said:

The polarity of the power is a different concept.  An ac lighting socket (usually but not always) wires a grounded neutral to the wall of the socket, and the "hot" to a base terminal.  Both wires carry current.  Likewise, a dc circuit may (or not) have the negative or positive tied to a local ground.  Applying the notion of "energized" vs not in this context makes no sense to me.  Maybe someone can explain it to me?

Nothing to explain, you have it right. Positive vs. negative are just conventions, names we give to opposite polarities so we can differentiate them. When someone claims that positive is "the side with Energy", they simply don't understand electricity, on multiple levels.

First, nothing happens unless a circuit is completed, and that requires both the positive and negative sides be present. When both are present, you have the potential (voltage) to provide power. Current (amps) needs to travel through both sides to provide power (watts). Neither polarity is in any way special. They're both necessary and both carry exactly the same amount of power. Energy (joules, or commonly kilowatt-hours) is how much power is provided over time. But, the fact is that neither positive nor negative are in any way special, safer, more dangerous, provide energy, etc. They're exactly equal, but opposite. Yin/Yang.

Sometimes, one side is connected to "ground", which is an imprecise term. It may mean physical ground (connected to a rod or pipe driven into the ground) or it may mean connected to the metal chassis of a device or vehicle. In any case, it implies that whichever side of the circuit is connected to ground is easily accessed - standing in a puddle of water, turning a water faucet, opening a car door might all connect you to one side of a circuit. That makes the other side more dangerous because you may complete the circuit (get a shock) if you touch something connected to it. Positive and negative, makes absolutely no difference. If one is grounded, it's the other which becomes a present danger. 

Trying to bring up household AC circuits, where the polarities alternate, into a discussion about solar DC again demonstrates a lack of knowledge. They're very different things. With household AC, sockets are used for power sources, plugs for devices drawing power. It's got nothing to do with positive or negative, everything to do with protecting users from exposure to a power source. Sockets are shrouded (contacts not easily accessed), plugs aren't. It's really got nothing to do with male/female contacts, other than it's easiest/cheapest/logical to make the shrouded side also the side with the female contacts, so that's the convention that developed. It's also related to the fact that in practice, users need to connect to both sides of the power source at the same time (e.g. plugging in a 2 prong lamp cord). 

It's very different with solar DC. First, it's rare that both sides of a power source get connected at the same time, and very common that a circuit gets completed by connecting two wires together (note that with AC, we're connecting 4 wires together when plugging in that lamp). Even if one side of the circuit is grounded somewhere, you might be working in the middle of a "string," and both wires are going to have voltage not only compared to each other, but when compared to ground. With the common MC4 solar DC connectors,  protection is provided by the insulating shroud provided with _both_ male and female connectors. There is absolutely no safety difference - none, zero, zip, nada - whether a male or female connector is used for positive or negative. There may be a convention, which is the question which started this thread.

Finally, the claim that power sources are always female. It's simply wrong, and everyone here knows it. I'm certain everyone has had a device which is powered by a "wall wart", where there's a round barrel plug (male) on the end of a cord which plugs into some device to provide power. QED. A less known example, for an voltage even more dangerous than household AC is the anode (positive!) connector for a CRT, which is most commonly a male spring contact.

TLDR; Positive and negative are just names. They're equal, but opposite, and neither is more dangerous, "provides energy", etc. on their own. Contact gender has nothing to do with safety. Safety is provided by shrouding connectors and making their contacts (male or female or hermaphroditic) difficult to access.

I think most people here understand all the basic concepts. It's just a small few who know only enough to be both wrong and dangerous, and insist on advertising that fact.

edurbrow said:

Which is male and which is female?

Honestly, this seems easy to me. Do a Google -> Image search for "MC-4 female" and it results in the male-looking plug. Buy two bags of MC-4 connectors from NAZ—ten each—and they arrive with the word "female" written on the side with a Sharpie of the male-looking plastic plugs.   And then the other bag will have "male" on them and they are the female-looking plastic receptacles.

Apparently, this decision stems from the single metallic connector buried inside the connector itself rather than the locking plastic mechanism. In conductor terms, the female receives the male.

Also, you can take the two bags of connectors to a Starbucks in California and see which bathroom they crawl toward. /YesThisIsHumorOnTheInternet