Crossed pos/neg - dead batt?

[uncle_bob]

Hi

What you can "feel" and what is hazardous are two *very* different things. Under any normal conditions, low voltage DC can't produce enough current for you to feel. What it takes to injure you is orders of magnitude higher than the "I can feel it" point.

Walk across the right kind of carpet in the winter and you will generate enough charge for a "shock" that you can feel. That happens a lot. If being able to feel the shock was the same as injury, we all wold not have made it past about age 5 or 6.

Indeed if you have a pacemaker or other interesting implants, electrical work it not a real good idea. Let somebody else do those chores .... also probably a good idea to avoid that carpet....

Bob

[Zil]

There is much bad advice in this thread. Do not under any circumstances short anything across battery terminals.

[ALUMINUMINUM]

Well, mine was more an inference of stupidity, not advice. I was 16.


Sears was the dumbest place I ever worked. They had a “Sears battery test station”, but nobody knew how to use it. We just pro-rated, and gave a new one. This was back in the pre-DieHard, early sixties days when the “AllState” batteries arrived on an Exide truck dry, then we acid filled and charged them for a day. There was a room full of battery acid. We did have a hydrometer. I was 16.


They had me change and inflate split-rims on a Coats 10-10. The steel safety cage for inflating split-rims was used to house trashcans and cardboard. I was 16.

[HowieE]

It is a wonder that any of us live back in those OSHA preprotective days, but at least we learned not to do it again.


People are just told not to do something now days without any reasoning to use in future judgements.

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by HowieE

......

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People are just told not to do something now days without any reasoning to use in future judgements.

Hi

Which can easily lead to overkill ( = so many lockouts (or whatever) that they just get ignored) or "safety paralysis" (so much effort is put into safety that no actual progress is made). Both can seriously degrade the actual safety on a job. Understanding what the issues are is *way* more important than reciting pages out of a rule book word for word. Even more so once you find that the rule books are specific to this or that and can easily be incorrect for the job you are doing ...

Bob

[polarlyse]

Howie. At least those of us that survived the first go-around learned to "Not do it again"