Battery safety

B

Biggles

New Member
Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster. Realised this would be a good place to ask.

I know mechanical shit, I've no problem with doing cambelts, rebuilding brakes, swapping older engines etc. But I'm the only car nerd I know, and I got my knowledge from the internet, so there's holes in it.

I'm shit scared of electricity, and while there's a million videos of people JZ swapping S13s and shit, there's not a lot on batteries and hooking them up etc.

I wanna know from people who do this sort of stuff a lot, what can you and can't you do with a battery? I've seen people touch the terminals on batteries, which freaks me the fuck out. When I have to disconnect a battery I do it at arm's length and carefully.

Do I need to be really careful? or is it way safer than I think? If I'm tinkering around near a starter or an alternator, and I touch the hot terminal with a tool, or my hand, will anything happen? Is it only bridging with tools that makes things go bang?

TL;DR I'm scared of batteries and the angry pixies within, should I be?
 
Long time lurker he says, after joining today :smash:

lol, anyway, yes, maybe a bit more knowledge on the matter rather than being scared would help. For electricity to do anything you need to complete a circuit. The power of a car battery is not enough to overcome the resistance (in ohms, not metaphorically!) of the human body, so if you put a hand on each terminal it wont even do anything. You need to be more concerned about bridging the terminals with something metallic, it will make a decent spark, a pop an probably damage the battery. The biggest concern is earthing it onto something which will damage it, so wiring for a sensitive sensor or something like MAF or Knock.

Long story short, if youre doing a swap the battery is first thing out, last thing back in. And wire everything in correctly, and stop being a pussy, you sound like youre from the 19th century scared of this new fangled invention of illumination without fire!
 
MaccyD said:
Long time lurker he says, after joining today :smash:

lol, anyway, yes, maybe a bit more knowledge on the matter rather than being scared would help. For electricity to do anything you need to complete a circuit. The power of a car battery is not enough to overcome the resistance (in ohms, not metaphorically!) of the human body, so if you put a hand on each terminal it wont even do anything. You need to be more concerned about bridging the terminals with something metallic, it will make a decent spark, a pop an probably damage the battery. The biggest concern is earthing it onto something which will damage it, so wiring for a sensitive sensor or something like MAF or Knock.

Long story short, if youre doing a swap the battery is first thing out, last thing back in. And wire everything in correctly, and stop being a pussy, you sound like youre from the 19th century scared of this new fangled invention of illumination without fire!
Click to expand...

Fully aware that I'm being a pussy about it lol

Next time I'm wrenching I'm gonna try man up and touch the terminals, now I know it's actually safe to do so. I feel like someone told me car batteries were super sketchy or killers or something when I was younger cause I have no idea why I think they're so dangerous.

So if I need to replace a battery, I wanna take the ground off last, then put the ground on the new one first? like when jumping a car?
 
Yes bud, car batteries are more likely to cause harm by dropping it on your foot than electrocution (unless you have like a really long tongue and can lick both terminals, but i dont think anyone wants to know the answer to that anyway lol)
 
MaccyD said:
Yes bud, car batteries are more likely to cause harm by dropping it on your foot than electrocution (unless you have like a really long tongue and can lick both terminals, but i dont think anyone wants to know the answer to that anyway lol)
Click to expand...

Thanks man, it's what I was hoping to hear!

Edit: Hold up, are you saying all those scenes of people being tortured in movies with jumper leads are bullshit? that appears to be what you're saying, maybe that's where I got it from lol
 
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