Thread: Reversed battery terminals/polarity

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.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

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."
__________________

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.

Originally Posted by Tank

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."
__________________

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.