How to Properly use Battery Jumper Cables
By Jerry Walch, 23rd Jan 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutGuidesTransportCars
Using jumper cables to jump start a car with a dead battery is not rocket science, but you can do irreparable damage to your car's electrical system as well as to the electrical system on the car being used to jump start yours if you connect the cables improperly. You can also injure yourself if you do not know the proper way to connect them.
- What you will need
- Connecting jumper cables to a car's battery.
- Preparing to Jump-Start your car.
- Jump-starting your car's engine.
- Related Articles
What you will need
One thing that every driver needs to have in his emergency kit is a set of high quality battery jumper cables. Expect to pay $15 to $30 for quality cables. Do not go the cheap route and buy a set of those $10 cables you see at the discount stores because they will fail you miserably when you need them the most. For one thing, the clamps on those cheap cables just do not grip the battery terminals tight enough to form a good electrical connection. Another problem with cheap cables is that they are made using a smaller gauge of wire instead of the AWG# 2 wire that the quality cable use and the smaller wire offer higher resistance to the current trying to flow through them, preventing the full voltage of the operating car battery and charging system from reaching your car's dead battery.
Connecting jumper cables to a car's battery.
Before you can connect the cables to your car's battery and to the battery of the car providing you with the “Jump Start”, you need to locate and recognize the “Positive” and “Negative” terminals on the car's lead-acid storage battery. There are three basic battery designs in use today, those with top mounted terminal posts, those with side mounted terminals, and those with a combination of top and side mounted terminals. If your car still has its original battery installed, the odds are that it will have either top mounted terminal posts or side mounted terminals. If the original battery has been replaced, it might have any one of the three terminal configurations. The “Positive” and “Negative” terminal can be identified in any of three ways. On batteries with top mounted posts, the “Positive” post has a significantly larger diameter than the “Negative” post. The positive and negative posts/terminals will also have a (+) and (-) sign embossed in the battery case next to them. The positive and negative posts/terminals of some batteries may also be identified by their color, with their positive terminal being red and the negative being black. The positive terminal will also, as a rule, be covered with a red plastic or rubber cover/boot.
Properly identifying the terminals is extremely important because connecting the positive side of one battery to the negative side of the other can cause irreparable damage to both cars electrical systems. Reversing the connections to the batteries can also cause one or both of the batteries to explode.
Preparing to Jump-Start your car.
- Have the person providing the jump-start park his or her car as close to yours as possible and turn off his or her car's engine.
- Raise the hoods on both cars.
- Connect the red jumper cable clamps to the positive terminals on both batteries. Always connect the positive jumper cable first.
- Connect the black clamp of the other cable to the negative terminal of the battery in the car providing the jump-start.
- Attach the other end of the negative cable to a non-painted metal surface on the car being jump-started. Do not connect ot to the negative terminal of that battery. The reason for this being that a spark during the connecting or disconnecting of the cable could cause the battery to explode. Lead-acid storage batteries produce hydrogen and oxygen gasses at their terminals, a highly explosive combination. Modern batteries are sealed but tiny cracks do develop with age allowing the gasses to escape from the battery's case.
Jump-starting your car's engine.
- Have the person providing the jump-start, start the engine in his or her car and run it at a fast idle. The reason for running the engine at a fast idle is that you want the alternator on his or her car to provide the voltage and current needed to start your car.
- With their car's engine running, start the engine in your car. Once the engine in your car is running, leave cars running for a few minutes to charge your cars battery a little before disconnecting the black jumper cable from your car's metal frame and then from the negative battery terminal of the other car. Always disconnect the negative cable from your car's metal frame first to prevent a possible spark and explosion.
- Disconnect the positive cable clamps from the positive battery terminals on the batteries in both cars.
- Do not shut your engine off. If you do you will need to jump-start it again. It will take a good twenty to thirty minutes of driving to charge your battery sufficiently to restart your car on its own.
- If your drive home takes less time than that, let your car idle inyour drive until the battery is charged.
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Comments
23rd Jan 2012 (#)
Thanks Jerry, I think I need to print this off and carry it in my car. On the rare occasions I need to jump star my car I need to ring my hsband or find someone to do t for me at the moment.
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23rd Jan 2012 (#)
Thank you, Val for reading and for commenting. Glad it was helpful.
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23rd Jan 2012 (#)
Your first image looks like me - perplexed!!!! And yet another star page jerry - marvellous.
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23rd Jan 2012 (#)
No need to be perplexed by things mechanical. When I taught junior college leve auto mechanics some of my best students were really girly girls in every other way, the problem is that girls have started to believe the myth that certain things, things like auto mechanics are guy things and they are incapable of learning how to do them. Forgive my French but that is a whole load of bull shit. Some of the smartest mechanics that I know are girly girls.
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23rd Jan 2012 (#)
Very helpful, thank you Jerry!
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23rd Jan 2012 (#)
You're most welcome, Delicia. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
Thank you Jerry great info here.
I do seem to shock ppl alot as I do know what i am doing with a car lol!!
I had my tire changed and the bloke was quite shocked when i put my spare (donut) back in the car myself! I come across this a lot.. I love your articles thank you for sharing.
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
You are most welcome, Kerry. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
Very helpful guide, Jerry. Thanks for sharing.
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
It's so nice of you Jerry to think about us and write this helpful article. Another well deserved star!
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
Stephanie is the one who deserves the thanks, Carol. She is the one whose article inspired me to start writing these articles.
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
Really good information on how to use a car battery. Funny how these 'small things' can mean a matter of importance when stranded on the side of the road. Good page my friend. Thank you for sharing.:)
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24th Jan 2012 (#)
Thank you,Denise for the read and the encouraging comments.
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26th Jan 2012 (#)
Thanks for the information. I really needed to read this because I have never had to use jumper cables by myself before. Now, maybe I could :)
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26th Jan 2012 (#)
Sure you can! I have faith in you, Orange3
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2nd Feb 2012 (#)
Great informative article, Jerry! You do not loses us in mechanical mumbo jumbo, and issue warnings as a preventative..You are doing so much good with this basic tips..I know Stephanie started off the DIY idea, but you are doing her proud..
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2nd Feb 2012 (#)
Thank you, Songbird.
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