----- Original Message -----
From: <fv74@altavista.net>
To: "Military Vehicles List" <mil-veh@skylee.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Jumpstarting
> I also know someone who lost an eye due to an exploding 12v battery. He
was connecting a 12v battery charger when it exploded. I should have
mentioned that you should never attach both jumper cables to the batteries,
regardless of voltage. The last connection should always be to chassis
ground.
>
If not ground, always make the _last_ connection to the dead battery, it is
a fact that you usually end up leant right over the good battery under the
hood (bonnet) to make the connection, not a good place to be when it
explodes.
Although it can be argued with today's "no-maintenance" gas re-combination
batteries that the risk is minimised there is still a big danger. The
"good" battery is invariably in a recently stopped or likely still running
and therefore charging vehicle, above some 13.6V on a nominal 12V battery
the cells make gas in quantity and the normal vehicle system will take it to
something between 14V and 14.4V.
The gas given off is a perfect, down to the last molecule, mixture of 2
hydrogen atoms for one oxygen, combining them to form water (H2O) is a very
violent instantaneous reaction wholly capable of exploding a battery, in
slightly larger proportions of gas it is entirely capable of heaving tons of
your shuttle into space, as it does, and with no combustion product
pollutant too.
Best keep any source of ignition, or sparks, well away.
> This gets confusing when you try to jump a positive ground vehicle with a
negative ground vehicle. Many older English cars are positive ground. I
guess this goes along with driving on the left side of the road. Many thanks
for your observations, the last thing any of us want is someone getting
hurt.
>
Absolutely.
Life is much more fun with both eyes and a full complement of appendages.
Richard
Southampton - England
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 02 2000 - 23:51:28 PDT