I have a jump start gadget for, jump starting cars with flat batterys.I believe the right way to connect the leads is positive to batteryterminal positive and negative to an earthing point. Doing this Idon't have a very satisfactory result. But last time after it wouldn'tstart doing this, I just connected it positive to positive andnegative to negative and it started fine. So what is wrong with doingthis all the time? The earting point method seems to have problemsconnecting to painted metal etc.

Spark from terminal + gas from battery = explosion. Dunno whether there is a real risk with modern "sealed" batteries, but I've seen it happen at close quarters and I can assure you it's something you would want to avoid.Paint isn't a good conductor. You should earth it to bare metal - generally a chunk of the engine, or a bracket will do.Biggles

Jump start gadget, right way to connect?

Oct 17, 2005 21 Replies

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Dave Plowman (News) 20 years ago

I wasn't much good at that either.

But at my school we covered batteries as part of physics, so there.

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Dave Plowman (News) 20 years ago

And batteries used to be stored dry 'charged' Add the correct strenght acid and away they went. So if this experiment started out with the correct materials that would explain it.

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