18 awg speaker wire jumper cables

[Rusty Heap]

I've used worse before to slowly trickle charge a dead car battery before, but today I cut both male/female ends off a twelve foot house-hold extension cord (18 awg zip cord lamp cord "speaker" wire) gotta-do-what-you-gotta-do to trickle charge a battery enough in 15-20 minutes to get a dead car started. It was all I had available, so just strip off 3" of bare wire to wrap around a battery post.............


Another time to McGiever a jump start solution, I've used coat hangers, and even once turn a sealed battery upside down terminal to terminal (no wires) to get a car running...........hey that one was in high school and the girl was waiting for me.........


Just sayin', it's handy to have a brain sometimes to get yourself out of a jamb. It's only 12 vdc, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do with the stuff you have on hand.


YMMV
don't try this at home
as seen on TV.

[porsche4life]

I've seen my dad do way worse.... With 120v.... Or 15k volts.. All his work with neon transformers has kinda taken his fear for electricity down a few notches...

[Rusty Heap]

120 VAC only tickles, 240 and 480 3 phase gets my respect..................but then again, 12 VDC and a good conducting dead short between battery posts or 6 gauge starter circuit wire shorted to to a header does tend to glow orange and let the smoke out of the wires.........


It's not the Volts, but the amps and wattage behind it.


Anyways, I was just sharing and happy to McGuiever my way out of a bad situation with zero resources at a elderly persons driveway............even though she has AAA auto coverage, screw that, I'm an engineer dammit.

Brings back memories of when we once compression started a buddies car, that WAS an automatic tranny.........towed the ~1970 dodge dart up to about 20-25 mph in neutral, and slam it into gear.......started right up towing and getting the torque converter pumped full of auto tranny fluid first.....grins........

I mean who hasn't compression pushed started a stick shift car dropping the clutch into 2nd gear at some point in their VW or Porsche life? Now an Auto Tranny, that's a whole 'nother level.....

[LeeH]

Hmmm... wonder what my stereo would sound like if I used jumper cables instead of speaker wire.

[biosurfer1]

I got zapped by a 277V lighting panel once...I'm still here but certainly will be making sure I don't do it again.

I work for a power company now and some of the stories from the line guys don't end as well as mine.

[vash]

i watched an ironworker jump start a cat excavator with a welder..

i got waaaaaayyyyy back. he admitted that he did have a battery explode in the past..

[Steve Viegas]

It's not the volts, it is the current you have to be wary of...Your car battery has enough current to cook you.

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by Steve Viegas

Your car battery has enough current to cook you.

While there is enough current available to kill you, there isn't enough voltage to hurt you.

[Rusty Heap]

Originally Posted by vash

i watched an ironworker jump start a cat excavator with a welder..

i got waaaaaayyyyy back. he admitted that he did have a battery explode in the past..

Interesting idea, and seriously, why not............my Lincoln arc welder has a DC output setting, and you can set the running amps at many settings......THANKS for that tip!

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Interesting idea, and seriously, why not............my Lincoln arc welder has a DC output setting, and you can set the running amps at many settings......THANKS for that tip!

You likely can't set the voltage low enough, and the voltage is not controlled in stick mode.....you want to be in voltage control mode (mig) not current control mode (stick)....this would be a last resort solution for me. That's why not.

[johnco]

started big diesel compressor many times with truck welder. . luckily I never blew up a battery. well, not the times I've done that. doesn't mean I've never had a battery explode in my face though.

[T77911S]

Originally Posted by LeeH

Hmmm... wonder what my stereo would sound like if I used jumper cables instead of speaker wire.

i basically do.

i use 12 gauge wire but is 4 conductor wire with the black rubber outside. SO cord i think. my speakers are BI-wired. 2 wires on each terminal on the amp then one pair go to the lows and one pair to the highs. i never thought it would make a difference but it cleans up the highs.

i got the cable idea from doing pro audio. we used these type of cables to bi-amp the speakers. 4 conductors in one nice package.


the wires on my battery charger are not that big. at the most they are 16gauge.

[mreid]

When I was in the navy, I was opening a display console and the back of my knuckle hit a filtering capacitor with 10,000vdc on it. Knocked me on my ass but I was fine as it was such low amperage. Another time I accidentally shorted a 6vdc power supply to ground with a small screwdriver (tweeker). There was so much amperage that it welded the tweeker to ground.