The posts can be positive on left or right and on either side of the casing as well so it is possible to buy the wrong battery and have the leads reach the wrong terminals.
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The posts can be positive on left or right and on either side of the casing as well so it is possible to buy the wrong battery and have the leads reach the wrong terminals.
I'm not arguing, some people in this post have claimed that they connected up their battery arse about and it worked and the gist of the post was that it was easy to do so. Most cases the leads are NOT long enough, I offered a helpful suggestion, in that large terminals fit large post and small terminals fit small posts, plain enough for most. If the advice don't suit don't ask, regards Frank.
I as a mobile plant mechanic come across this problem from time to time The best one I can think of is where a vehicle had its lights left on and totally flatten the battery.
One of the workers removed the battery to charge it on a old bench top charger.
That worker placed the battery charger cables on back to front and charged the battery up in reverse polarity.
Then the battery was then fitted as per normal.
They couldnt work out why the altenator cooked its self when the battery was fitted.
I still on odd times come across old vehicles and equiptment where the polarity of equiptment is changed or back to front , usually by accident, petrol or diesel.
If its got a generator fitted it will not matter that much so long as the generater has been excited for the polarity and if petrol with points the condenser changed, or it may fail.
Electronic stuff is another story.
I find on old equiptment it can be hard at times to see which way a battery has been fitted, especially if running marine or deep cycle golf cart batteries, or a diesel truck which though lack of mantainace has preivously burnt the old battery terminals, or they have been remolded as a repair to save buying a new expensive large truck battery.
wait till you watch someone trying to sort out positive earth gear.
IVe seen someone goto all the effort of making a new set of leads, hooking up the battery, blowing everything up, replacing everything blowing it all up again before asking for help just to have an old salt wipe the grime off the battery box and show the +ve earth cautioning signs.
some very cheap leads and terminals can be easily stretched wide enough to be a positive and still close up small enough to grip a negative terminal.
Quote: "some very cheap leads and terminals can be easily stretched wide enough to be a positive and still close up small enough to grip a negative terminal."Quote:
Originally Posted by Blknight.aus
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That's right Dave, but you would agree that it would take some extra effort, not a straight forward job and commonsense would prevail, surely when you had to open up one terminal and if the fact that the pos+ terminal was such a loose fit.
I t doesn't take a mechanic to work out something is not right, wouldn't you agree, Regards Frank.
I know tons of people who would take the challenge of making battery terminals fit improperly. Some of them are fully qualified mechanics even. Nothing a bit of brute force won't fix. A loosened negative terminal will happily slip onto a positive post. The OP made a mistake and paid dearly for it. I suggest you stop harping on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tank
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tank
not really, for 2 reasons 1, old bateries with abused terminals can have the terminals corroded down to the same size and secondly if its easy it doesnt take much effort, Ive seen the end results of plenty of mechanics doing things involving backwards that in hindsight that are incredibly stupid and probably took more effort to do wrong than to do right, some of my favorites
- putting a landy wheel on backwards
- putting the right front halfshaft in the left side building that side up then trying to work out why the right side axle wont go all the way home
- putting the RRC luxo barge seats with the arm rests in on the wrong side
- putting a front diff assembly in backwards on a perentie because it was easier to get the radius arms to bolt up with the tie rod out the front)
- putting a clutch plate in backwards
Ignoring all of the previous things not all batteries have different size post tops.