So my father was a commercial electrician through the 1970’s-2000’s in New York City and always had unique solutions to electrical problems around the house. Sadly, he passed away well before I got my degree in physics and would’ve been able to better appreciate/understand what he was doing. There was one time in particular that leaves me stumped to this day and I was hoping someone could help me put together the pieces to make sense of it.
I was about 10 years old and our truck battery died while a friend was letting us stay in their log cabin. It was pretty remote, so nobody else was around with a car, but the friend had a small pop-up camper in their driveway with its own battery. I’m not sure what other tools my dad had available to him beyond a set of jumper cables and basic workshop tools. We also would’ve had the log cabin that was being powered by the electrical grid, but I don’t particularly remember my father going into the house itself while try to do this. It’s definitely possible that he did though, so I don’t necessarily want to write that off as a possibility.
Obviously this isn’t enough information for you to reconstruct what exactly he *may* have done to jump this battery, so I guess the better question is: Given these supplies (rv battery and jumper cables), how would you go about jumping this car battery? And, in the case that these supplies are insufficient, what additional supplies would you need (short of another running car) to actually jump the battery?
Thanks!
Hi Antman_430, welcome to the forum. The RV battery was used to jump the car, given your evidence. In good conditions and with a good engine, the needed boost to start an engine can be minimal. However, under bad conditions, it may not have worked. Murphy was on holiday that day.
I once started a vehicle with a dead battery using a welder. The welder is capable of outputting many amps, however, the working voltage was 36 volts, but was dropped over the welding rod, therefore did not damage anything. This was back in the 1970s, so there were no electronics to fry. This is not recommended on newer vehicles.
With a degree in physics, depending on your specialty, this is a simple problem. However, if you did not study electrical theory at all and have no experience, this can be perplexing. A vehicle in good condition and a battery that is run down enough to not turn the engine over is a problem because the starter motor can pull up to 200 amps to rotate the engine on a larger engine, such as a V8 diesel, but on the other hand, on a 4 cylinder gas engine can pull as little as 50 amps. If the engine is in good shape and starts easy, the engine does not have to turn but small amount to start.
Hope this helps...