Positive

'Positive', in electronics, generally refers to a voltage that is higher than a reference, e.g. ground.

'Positive' can also refer to the pin on an electrical component that should be at a higher voltage than another pin (which would then be called the 'negative'). For components such as LEDs and diodes, anode and cathode tend to be more appropriate terms.

• Conventional current usually flows into the 'positive' pin on a load component.
• However, for power supplies / batteries, conventional current flows out of the positive terminal.

Positive parts of components can be marked in a few different ways:

• Some components will have an explicit "+" symbol marked on them (e.g. electrolytic capacitors, batteries, etc.)
• Some cables (e.g. those on wall-wart power supplies) mark the positive cable with a stripe
• Other cables mark the positive lead with a red colour, and the negative with a black (e.g. battery clips). Note that this is only convention for batteries and other ULV DC components, and a red does not necessarily indicate a handy positive voltage supply!

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