Which Wire is Which?

PoGee

My landline phone is cordless - it gets charged at the wall socket. The cable is damaged so I've cut it at that point and taken off the black plastic covering. There are 2 wires and I usually tell which is which by the blue or brown internal plastic but these wires have neither. However, what I do see is that of the 2 black wires (they are stuck together, if you see what I mean), one has a pale blue or white dashed line along it. Does anyone know if that dashed line means live or neutral?

knightstyle

Usually the wire with dashes along it is + or live.

bob_a_builder

These sound more like low voltage wires - usually these cordless phone bases have a power supply inside the plug itself - so its usually bigger than normal 
So I dont think it means Live or Neutral
But it makes sense to connect the same wires together 

The PSU in the plug may be putting out low voltage AC - in  which case it wont matter 
or its putting out DC in which case it does

If in doubt connect the white dashed cable to the white dashed cable etc

molerat

I am confused.  Surely you just compare where the other cut off part of the wires went to ?

What exactly are you trying to reconnect / connect to ?

grumbler

PoGee said:

 However, what I do see is that of the 2 black wires (they are stuck together, if you see what I mean), one has a pale blue or white dashed line along it. Does anyone know if that dashed line means live or neutral?

It's neither live nor neutral. Most likely, it's low-voltage plus or minus.

neilmcl

What cable are you referring to? The power cable to the mains adapter or the telephone cable?

A pic would also be helpful.

grumbler

neilmcl said:

What cable are you referring to? The power cable to the mains adapter or the telephone cable?

PoGee said:

My landline phone is cordless - it gets charged at the wall socket.

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PoGee

Apologies for not being clear. I'm about to connect the wires to a new plug as the damage is at the neck, just where it leaves the original plug. I understand it would make sense to get a new one but I'm not shy to say I'm a miser....unless what I want to do is a danger to life.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

maybe a wee photie would help.

Phantom151

Dashed line would normally be negative but you would need a multimeter to be sure. I'm assuming you can't tell which is which where it comes out of the adapter. There should be something like this:

This will tell you which wire goes where but you still need a multimeter.

PoGee

Pic is of damaged plug, which is sealed and wires. I took off the black plastic to expose copper wiring so can connect to new plug but got stumped as no brown or  blue plastic under black. The white dashed line is there, which is just about visible.