Connected Battery Jumper Cables Wrong

[funwithahoe]

This isn't a 'Bota question but I have spent enough time on this forum to know some of you will get a kick out of my stupidity this morning.

I went to jump my Impala this morning with my F150 and having my mind on other things I reversed the positive on the F150 with the ground. Big spark when I connected it to the impala but didn't think too much of it as there is always some spark. Well fortunately the jumper cables started to burn before I tried to start the Impala.

I went to yank the cables off and got a heck of a burn on my thumb but couldn't figure out what was going on as this is not my first time jumping a car (or tractor or using a tractor to jump a car). When I figured it out i felt about as dumb as BP executive.

I did it correctly and the car started and I drove it to Sam's and got a new battery for it - I am sure I screwed something up with the battery. The car seems to be running fine and all the electrical components work.

Truck seems good to go but I am looking at taking it on a 1500 mile trip soon - Any ideas if I could have screwed something up with it's system?? The truck was running the whole time and did "rev down" when I connected the terminals incorrectly.

Any thought would be much appreciated.:thumbsup:

 

[Transit]

Reverse voltage could have stressed the alternator and the computer module, only time will tell for sure. Or you may have lucked out without damage.

 

[funwithahoe]

Reverse voltage could have stressed the alternator and the computer module, only time will tell for sure. Or you may have lucked out without damage.

I agree and I guarantee you it stressed the alternator. I don't know anything about the computer modules but I can imagine they don't like it when you hook their system up to another 12V batt wrong!

I suspect I'll be OK with the car since the key was out of it and I have since replaced the battery - I don't see where anything could be broken since there shoudn't have been any draw of current. If I had burnt something I would guess it would have been picked up in the 35 mile trip to replace the battery?

Thanks.

Oh and BTW - When you see how fast those cable start burning their housing you realize how much power you are dealing with and how safe you SHOULD be - (Not how safe I was).

 

[Transit]

Yep! I have seen 2 x 2 copper bus bars vaporize.

Working at NYC Penn Station looking for the reason a 1,200 amp breaker is tripping only on aux power from AmTrack.

The load current is 800 amps and it will run 3/4 of an hour between trips.:confused2:

 

[funwithahoe]

Yep! I have seen 2 x 2 copper bus bars vaporize.

Working at NYC Penn Station looking for the reason a 1,200 amp breaker is tripping only on aux power from AmTrack.

The load current is 800 amps and it will run 3/4 of an hour between trips.:confused2:

So the Aux power was set up wrong (rev. polarity) and vaporized a 2X2 bus bar??

 

[BeezFun]

When I figured it out i felt about as dumb as BP executive.

I did the same thing with a Silverado and my wife's Mazda. I noticed the end of the jumper cable was glowing red and it still took my neuron 5-10 seconds to figure out what was happening. I never had any electrical problem with either car. You'd think there'd be some sacrificial diodes in front of all these sensitive electronics. In a country with 250 million vehicles there must be a couple thousand people a day crossing their jumper cables.

 

[Transit]

So the Aux power was set up wrong (rev. polarity) and vaporized a 2X2 bus bar??

No, two different problems. The bus bar was from UPS battery bank at Hoboken station-yard years ago, testing a Locomotive to drive Rail Road Signal power.

At Penn station the 1,200 amp breaker and load [AC chillers] is common to both the main and aux power sources and is connected to either source one at a time. Source A delivers 800 amps to the load at 480 V, Y three phase, or source B delivers the same 800 amps. Only when the load is connected to source B does the breaker trip after 3/4 hour. Reset the breaker and it runs another 3/4 hr. The vector-phase diagram for both lines is in sync, we have everything surrounded with recorders, no results as yet.

Reverse polarity would cause an instant trip.

 

[justturc]

I would think it's a high resistive (loose connection) connection droping the 480 volts raising current draw. Are the chillers loading up on full load? Could be up to 4X's current draw on start up. High heat at connection should be checked by scanner. One phase could be drifting out causing additional load. Need fast acting recorders, curve rate on C/B should absorb some of mismatch. Is source B from generated source running at 60 cycles. Something is drifting the phasing out of syc. I know it's all about tractors, but sometime we need a little tune up.

 

[Tollster]

Some vehicles are outfitted with a fusable link on the positive cable, in the event of an overload or incorrect terminal hook up, the link will blow, therby prevent more serious damage to the computer circuits.
I would say you got off lucky and should see no issues for your trip.

 

[Transit]

I would think it's a high resistive (loose connection) connection droping the 480 volts raising current draw. Are the chillers loading up on full load? Could be up to 4X's current draw on start up. High heat at connection should be checked by scanner. One phase could be drifting out causing additional load. Need fast acting recorders, curve rate on C/B should absorb some of mismatch. Is source B from generated source running at 60 cycles. Something is drifting the phasing out of syc. I know it's all about tractors, but sometime we need a little tune up.

Dave, we have looked at all the normal stuff, now it is time for the Ouija boards, snake oil and witch doctors.
One thing we know for sure, what its not.

 

[funwithahoe]

I would think it's a high resistive (loose connection) connection droping the 480 volts raising current draw. Are the chillers loading up on full load? Could be up to 4X's current draw on start up. High heat at connection should be checked by scanner. One phase could be drifting out causing additional load. Need fast acting recorders, curve rate on C/B should absorb some of mismatch. Is source B from generated source running at 60 cycles. Something is drifting the phasing out of syc. I know it's all about tractors, but sometime we need a little tune up.

Remember - Please don't drink and drive and don't drink and "tractorbynet".

 

[HiddenHollow]

Transit, Has a load been added that you are not a where of? That trick gets pulled on us at work quite a bit.

 

[funwithahoe]

Transit, Has a load been added that you are not a where of? That trick gets pulled on us at work quite a bit.

hidden and transit - Do you think my truck/truck battery is screwed up? It was running when I went to jump the Impala.

Thanks.

 

[BrierPatch]

If there is something damaged on your truck it would most likely be something in the charging circuit. Since you are jumping the impala it's battery was drained/at a lower voltage. So really all you did to your truck was put a very heavy load on the battery and alternator/voltage regulator. Since your truck is running okay the best way to check your charging circuit is to turn on all the electrical items you can (headlights, blower, AC, etc.) and check your voltage at the battery. You should see around 14.4 volts (not sure excatly what voltage is typical for fords) with everything on and truck running. If your charging circuit is not working you will see the battery voltage slowly drop meaning that your charging circuit is not keeping up and you are slowly draining the battery.

Good Luck,

 

[Transit]

Remember that everything works normally when the load is running from source A and fails on source B. The chiller load and breaker are always the same. Nothing looks out of place. Startup loads look normal. That is the problem, nothing is out of place. The offending breaker was moved to another circuit with the same loading and no trouble. It may be simply that we are getting bad power from the AmTrack substation and have not recorded it as yet. Station management is not too cooperative with testing and they want the backup to be working, we need more test time without interference.

The team opinion is the cause of the problem is the AmTrack power and how do we prove it?

Fun, I do not think that you have harmed the battery, however, solid state devices cannot take a joke, they dont do well with current surges or voltage spikes. All that I can offer is being prepared. 99.9% that everything will be fine bing that it has been running this long and dont do that again.

 

[BrierPatch]

Remember that everything works normally when the load is running from source A and fails on source B. The chiller load and breaker are always the same. Nothing looks out of place. Startup loads look normal. That is the problem, nothing is out of place. The offending breaker was moved to another circuit with the same loading and no trouble. It may be simply that we are getting bad power from the AmTrack substation and have not recorded it as yet. Station management is not too cooperative with testing and they want the backup to be working, we need more test time without interference.

The team opinion is the cause of the problem is the AmTrack power and how do we prove it?

I am not familar with your situation or equipment, but it sounds like there is some missing info. Sync. has been mentioned, but you say the breaker is only on one source at a time. What type of transfer switch is this? Are the sources synced so you can switch over uninterrupted or is there a time delay when switching from one to another and everything has to restart? What is the breaker tripping on, instantaneous phase to neutral, phase to phase, timed overcurrent neutral or phase to phase, or is it just opening with no flags.

Maybe we should be PM'ing each other on this one, unless everyone else is enjoying the ride. I am curious what you find out, will be educational for alot of us.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

In the future, remember that the positive terminal is the big one with the big + embossed next to it on the battery. The negative cable doesn't get connected to the battery at all, but just goes from chassis to chassis. Hooking up the positive wrong just shorts one battery or the other through the cables. The big danger is an exploding battery.

 

[Transit]

At this point we have not nailed any reason down, no flags, infer red imaging shows no hot spots. We have not exchanged the inputs to the A/B transfer switch which would be a major power outage. We have not been able to explain why it takes about 45 minuets to trip which is longer than any timeout trip. Everything is so clean that the CB should never trip. Any reason explaining the trip on source B has a counter augment that it works on source A. all is pointing upstream back to the AmTrack substation. We will be at the station tomorrow to see what was captured over the hot weekend and I will know tomorrow when our next test shot is. Got a FED-X fresh supply of yak bones, wombat hides and zombie grave dust, Gary has his didgeridoo.

 

[dcyrilc]

At this point we have not nailed any reason down, no flags, infer red imaging shows no hot spots. We have not exchanged the inputs to the A/B transfer switch which would be a major power outage. We have not been able to explain why it takes about 45 minuets to trip which is longer than any timeout trip. Everything is so clean that the CB should never trip. Any reason explaining the trip on source B has a counter augment that it works on source A. all is pointing upstream back to the AmTrack substation. We will be at the station tomorrow to see what was captured over the hot weekend and I will know tomorrow when our next test shot is. Got a FED-X fresh supply of yak bones, wombat hides and zombie grave dust, Gary has his didgeridoo.

Don't forget to throw in some Wolvesbane and Eye of Newt for good measure.

 

[tomf]

This happened to me with my F-150. We were on our way home from vacation about 1:30 in the morning. Some guy needed a jump. I said red on the positive. He responded yes. Well he didn't know red or positive. My battery was smoking. Now I always make the connections myself. The clamp that connected to the battery post was broken somehow. Luckily I was able to make enough of a connection to make it the remaining hour home. This was a couple of years ago. My 150 is fine. I did eventually have to replace the battery. But it was 12 years old so it was about time to replace it.