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Can somone explain WHY positive first when jumping a car battery?

I got the idea from this newsgroup something like a decade or so ago.

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They had fitted a typical garden hose attachment instead of that one.
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I tried it but it was too heavy, especially with the ball valve attached.
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It was heavier than the diverter valve was designed to handle so I switched to this instead, which gets its water volume control from the main valve.
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I know what you're thinking and I'm sure it's used for that, but for me, it's all about keeping it on the outside and making sure things are clean.

You'll never need toilet paper ever again and you'll be cleaner as a result. During Covid, I was wondering why anyone hoarded TP in the first place.

How does Covid make you need more TP?

Good point of view, where I live alone but it doesn't touch the body.

How did you know?

I used to use this but it was just too difficult to keep clean.

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Plus, the only thing getting bigger down there is my prostate, which is wreaking havoc with the drainage hydraulics, where I'll say no more.

Three of these a night tend to be simpler and work better on your side while in bed, with one more kept by the office computer because it's emptied more easily into the five gallon containment bucket (which is a re-used Costco 40 pound jug of soybean oil, or whatever size it is).

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It's really good for the environment NOT to make nitrogen fertilizer at a factory because the nitrogen in the NPK consumes inordinate amounts of heat.

For the environment, I collect the thicker stuff in one of these.

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The only problem with any of this is keeping things clean, but consider it a tradeoff as I never have to clean the toilets in the house ever again.

It feels good to give back to the soil, where I combine kitchen scraps, wood chips, and humanure in layers in a re-used Costco dichlor bucket with the cap held tightly as the bigger corvids fly around where I've kept it, I guess they're thinking a dead animal lives there or something. :)

I don't think I waste anything as I burn all paper in the fireplace along with the wood in the wood-burning stove, so it's only plastic that I have to place in the recycling bins about once every two months per bucket.

I'm not disagreeing with you as I said I didn't know from the start. I do know pool chemistry though - but not battery chemistry. At least not yet. But keep talking and I can learn from you which is a good thing.

I don't think I've had to add water to a car battery in years. I guess it's done though as the caps come off (two sets of three).

You got me there.

The pool chemistry is simple because pH doesn't matter for sanitation where I just pour liquid chlorine into the pool to maintain the chlorine level at least 7.5% of the cyanuric acid level. That's it for sanitation.

For saturation, there are a half dozen factors, only half of which do you have any amount of control over, the other half (like temperature) are out of your hands so it's a game of matching the saturation index with the expected temperatures combined with the dilution when it rains and the concentration when it evaporates and you have to fill with city water.

I would think battery chemistry has the same "type" of equilibrium constants (Pka is what we deal with in pool chemistry) though.

Just different chemicals and more redox stuff.

Reply to
Peter
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Wrong. And my formal qualifications are in chemistry.

Depends on what you are doing. Mostly it doesn't matter.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Nope.

That's the operation flogging de-ionizers

Wrong.

Wrong.

Separate matter entirely to which has other than H2O in it.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Those arent ions, they are gasses.

You don't get those in distilled water.

They aren't.

It decomposes into gasses when overcharged.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Fraid so.

That,s not how distillation works. The lower boiling point liquids come over first, before the water being distilled has reached boiling point.

Deionised water is even cheaper and easier to get.

Reply to
Rod Speed

No it is not,

Even sillier.

And that conflicts with its previous claim.

Nope, not in some situations like chemistry and medicine.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Bullshit, don't try that, you could die.

Why can't we drink distilled water?

Drinking distilled water creates health problems from the lack of essential nutrients and causes dehydration. Drinking distilled water is never a bad idea because the body cannot absorb dissolved minerals from water into the tissue.Sep 29, 2022

What Is Distilled Water and Is It Safe to Drink?

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› blogs › blog › is-...

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Distillation:

Advantages

Removes contaminants to a large extent Reusable Lower cost

Limitations

Some contaminants that have the same boiling point as water is vaporized with water can be carried into the condensate Careful maintenance is required to ensure purity Requires more heat / electrical energy to boil the water. Requires large space on the counter Slower process

Deionization:

Advantages

Effectively remove dissolved ions in the water. Able to regenerate resin beds Low-cost investment

Limitation

Do not remove particles or bacteria. Operating costs increase when used for the long term.

Reply to
Carlos E.R.

That makes no sense because it would happen with any very poor battery which does eventually manage to start the engine.

Nope.

The best way to change batterys is to keep supplying 12V with the original battery removed until the new battery has been connected. Thats what the pros do to avoid the antitheft system kicking in.

Reply to
Rod Speed

But don't understand the basics.

The reality is that there arent any significant amounts of lower boiling point liquids in normal tap water and certainly none that are a problem in a vehicle battery.

Ditto with those.

But don't understand the basics.

<reams of stuff irrelevant to water for vehicle batterys flushed>
Reply to
Rod Speed

It appears wrong to me too. Do not know where these claims came from except maybe somebody trying to tout their own system.

Reply to
Frank

I am a retired chemist and we are in agreement.

Reply to
Frank

You are wrong with the question of accidentally touching the body etc with the positive lead when the negatives have already been connected. Much safer to connect the positive terminals first.

Sparks aren't the problem. they happen regardless of which of positive and negative you connect first.

The reality is that with the battery in the engine compartment with the hood up, there will be on concentration of flammable hydrogen gas.

Even with the few cars that have the battery in the passenger compartment or the trunk, thats still very unlikely because the battery only produces hydrogen gas when it continues to be charged after it is fully charged.

But which won't be being charged unless the engine is still running.

Only AFTER the connection has been made which allows that.

The reality is that it isnt about hydrogen gas, its about accidentally touching the body of the recipient car with the positive jumper lead before it is connected to the positive post of the flat battery.

Reply to
Rod Speed

No its not, because its impossible to collect rain water that has come off the roof without some dirt and stuff like bird shit and leaves from the roof, quite apart from what happens to it sitting in your tank between when it came off the roof and you get some to add to your battery.

The problem is the lead carbonate. Not enough to matter tho.

Nope, because of whats on the roof and in the gutters dirt and bird shit wise.

The difference is that the distilled water hasnt fallen thru thousands of feet of air in small droplets.

Doesnt help with the solubles.

You can't see solubles.

That's obvious.

Wouldn't dream of doing that. You might burst into tears and that would be rather embarrasijng and someone might claim I have breached community standards.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Trouble with that approach is that you can't usually connect the thick battery leads to the new battery until the new batter is where the old battery still is.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Fraid not.

That's obvious.

Some tap water is quite hard and produces lots of scales in an electric jug over time.

That doesn't.

Fluoride, not flourine.

Yes, with hard water.

Not normally enough to matter.

But some still have water from wells for their tap water.

Particularly as most don't add water to their car battery anymore with sealed batterys.

And how much limestone there is. Lots in some places.

Or distilled water given that its cheap and you dont use much.

The battery manufacturers do.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Peter snipped-for-privacy@nospam.co.uk> wrote

It doesn't leach out of the plates, its boiled off when the battery is still charged when it has been fully charged already.

That's wrong too.

There is no equilibrium involved. You presumably mean that the dissolved stuff spread thruout the pool.

Utterly mangled all over again. Lead doesnt dissolve in water enough to matter.

Corse the designers of car batterys have.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Trivial to test that by weighing the battery before and after.

The reality is that modern cars use sealed batterys and no one adds any water to them anymore.

Reply to
Rod Speed

That's wrong. You don't get hydrogen when attempting to start the car with a battery that is flat or can't deliver the current the starter motor requires to turn the engine over fast enough.

Yes, but thats not because of the hydrogen.

More chance of accidentally touching part of the body of the donor car with the positive lead clamp.

& the donor has less outgassing

A, but for a different reason.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Nope.

We aren't discussing JUST drinking distilled water, we are discussing whether it is dangerous to drink it.

Bullshit. At most it might mean you don't get enough salt if you drink lots of it and dont eat anything.

That's the opposite of what you just claimed.

Doesn't need to if you get the salt from fool or salt tablets.

Just because some fool claims something...

The reality is that there are no contaminants like that in the water used to make distilled water for car batterys.

So do deionizers.

Or contaminants that have the same boiling point as water.

Reply to
Rod Speed

It doesn't but when some fools started buying it up so they wouldn't be without it, other fools followed suit.

Reply to
Rod Speed

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