rotarys and polarity

so slicksteel made mention to me that when he hooked his stealth up that it spun backwards..so he removed the back plate and the positve was on the bottom and iam guessing like me i was always taught the positve is on the top when you hook up a clip cord..so I checked mine and it was like that except for the rca ones I have... so I corrected the issue and now it spins clockwise.. my rotary works machine was the same way! So is it that we in the usa are ass backward? and beside's the polarity thing does it matter that the motor spins clockwise or counter clockwise? builder chime in please;)

yea and that was a rca jack one, so rca stealh owners maybe you might want to make sure its spining to the right.

You would be suprized how many machine builders don't even know the polarity of their setup. I mentioned before that when I polled the major USA tattoo supply companies about 6 years ago to find out what their choice of polarity......most didn't have a clue. I was brought up thinking that the positive is on the bottom. One major company I made many parts for set their machines up this way. I set the NeoTat to run with the positive to the center pin on the phono plug and RCA.....also set the positive to the bottom on the clipcord style. But I put a red band around the bottom post so you know it is positive.

I'd think that the polarity would be more of an issue with a lateral slide mechanism and polarity as opposed to a direct drive rotary (as long as it's always going in the same direction). So the motor should always visually spin clockwise?

And isn't polarity an issue with coil machines because of magnetism of the frame? I was taught to "put the red at the top and the black at the bottom" when I set them up.

if you are looking at the cam head on, it should spin counter clockwise.

Ahhh. Thanks Dandan!

hmm well on my machine when I connect the positive and negitive to there correct post and look at the machine from the front it spins clock wise on all of them except the neo tat cuz it slide.

There are different factors that determine the rotation direction. First would be the running direction of the motor. Most DC motors will spin both directions, but some are designed to spin in one direction only....depends on the brushes.
With a coil machine....it really does not matter. Only depends on the polarity of the cap, and if you use a bipolar cap...it doesn't matter....the coils pull down the armature bar the same.
On a rotary, if there is dwell designed in or some other means of driving that requires one direction only, then the direction is important....or again if the motor is made for one direction only. I'm sure other builders may dissagree with me, but a direct drive can spin both ways.

This is an old thread but I have been checking out a lot of motors lately and they can be different. I have a few different Mabuchi's, Radio Shacks and Maxons. The Mabuchis all spin counter clockwise except for a smaller one I have which spins clockwise, one of the RS motors spins counter while the other spins clockwise, the Maxons spin clockwise. The directions of these motors are all with positive to positive connection. Guess it just depends on the motors design unless the manufacturer screwed up the + marking haha.