Ranco wiring electrical question

I know squat about electrical issues, but have found several good wiring diagrams for Rancos, so I'm good there. I have a 15A extension cord that I cut to wire it up and, unfortunately, the only wire that is identifiable by color is the ground. The other are not colored.

Does it matter which you consider common and which you consider hot (i.e. the wire going to one of the prongs always going to be the common and one side the hot?). If so, I may have no choice but to hope that the next one I cut has colored wires! I hate to waste another cord, but better that than the Ranco or me!

Thanks for any input.

Yes, polarity matters. You can use that cord if you mark the wires (White GND) and (Black Hot). The reason for this is because if you happen to have 2 cords powering your equipment they would short to ground if they were reversed on 1 circuit and there were any interconnections between the 2 circuits. Besides it is to electrical code.

You can identify the wires to the prongs by using a meter or a battery & flashlight bulb. Technically speaking you also need to use an outlet tester to make sure that your outlets were wired correctly or all your efforts would be in vain. Careless wiring happens, non electricians wiring up their own homes don't always have a clue.

Actually, I believe Green is ground. White is common and black hot - at least for all the reference materials I have (google for one). Does your cord only have two wires?

RANCO's diagram doesn't show the ground, so I just twisted the ground pairs together. I just wired my second RANCO (first was pre-wired) and that worked like a charm.

Thanks for the replies, folks. I worked it out. This is one of those flat appliance cords and, like I said in my post, the hot and common wires were not colored. I was able to figure out which of the male plug prongs was hot (the one that went into the smaller of the holes in the wall outlet) and follow that wire. Ranco is up and running.