Reversed battery posts?? Hey Pat, get this!

[TR3driver]

However, a bias can certainly be created by the design of the device.

Yeah, OK, I guess you can call the electrode temperature part of the design of the spark plug. But it is a more or less inevitable part of the design, since the center electrode must be insulated from ground and electrical insulators are also thermal insulators. Definitely not intentional, at least not originally.

As far as hole flow, as I understand it only the "holes" move, not the protons (which are, as you say, tightly bound). It's kind of like a game of Chinese checkers, where the marbles are the electrons and the holes are in the board are the protons. As you jump your marble along left to right, the empty hole "moves" right to left even though the board doesn't change.

But the important bit, IMO, is that <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">it really doesn't matter</span></span>. For any practical use (like wiring a car), just follow one convention or the other and let it go at that. If you view electrical current as "flowing" from positive to negative, it all works out. If you prefer to think of electrons going the other way, it still works out.

Similarly, I don't have to know if the light is particles or waves in order to use a light bulb. And I can set my watch without taking into account the relativistic contraction.

 

[Geo Hahn]

What time does this episode of Nova end and Car Talk come on? :wink:

 

[Afrodesia]

I reversed it in the first place because of they way I saw the grounding. I didn't know it was grounded differently than more modern cars. Also, when it was pointed out that I had reversed it & we swapped, the charger needle jumped around about every 10 seconds. Seemed really odd.

So at this point, what will happen if I charge it according to the recommended (not reversed) way? Will it further damage the battery?

 

[CJD]

Hey Afro...to get to your point...!?!

You will first have to discharge the battery, so you start at stone dead. Just leave the headlights on for a few hours after they kill the battery. Then hook up the charger correctly and let it charge. You may have 2 issues, well make it 3:

1) Some modern chargers are sensetive to polarity, so they may not allow you to fix the reverse. The solution to that is to use jumper cables from another car for just 30 seconds or so (after the complete discharge, of course). The charger should then work fine.

2) The generator may need to be re-polarized. I would probably do it as a matter of course before you try to run the car after the charge. Moss has a good video showing how to do it, and it only takes a minute.

3) Do not be surprised if the battery won't hold a charge after this. Deep cycle batteries have a lot of lead and are designed to be abused. Most modern batteries have very thin lead plates...that tend to distort and short when abused. So don't chase your tail too much if the battery doesn't seem to hold a charge.

Anyway, you are very lucky...as this has to be one of the few cars you can run backwards and not damage anything! And don't worry, you are not the first to do it.

Good luck,

John

PS...to get in on the spark debate. The other day we were cruising in a high overhang at 35k feet and started picking up St. Elmo's fire. It was beautiful, blue arcs extending at least 12 feet forward off the nose of the plane. I pulled out my camera to take a pic, but all of a sudden a lightening bolt discharged right through the nosecone. It jarred the plane so hard that every single passenger felt the huge thud and saw the bright flash. They all were scared pale and asked about it after we landed.

So...which way was the electron flow for that spark? Or was it the "hole" in the nosecone being filled?

LOL

 

[TR6oldtimer]

PS...to get in on the spark debate. The other day we were cruising in a high overhang at 35k feet and started picking up St. Elmo's fire. It was beautiful, blue arcs extending at least 12 feet forward off the nose of the plane. I pulled out my camera to take a pic, but all of a sudden a lightening bolt discharged right through the nosecone. It jarred the plane so hard that every single passenger felt the huge thud and saw the bright flash. They all were scared pale and asked about it after we landed.

So...which way was the electron flow for that spark? Or was it the "hole" in the nosecone being filled?

LOL

The same way it always does.

St. Elmo's fire and the point of the nose, coupled with conductivity of the plane, provided a path of less resistance than the surrounding air. In essence, you were just in the way. The lesson is St. Elmo's fire while pretty, tells you are in highly electrified air associated with thunder storm activity. Not being an aviator, I do not know how often St. Elmo's Fire precedes a lightening strike, but in your case it did.

Oh, on the battery. I would replace it and have one less thing to worry about. The again, it may work just fine. If you keep it, get a hydrometer so you will be to tell for sure if it is taking a full charge.

 

[CJD]

So it could have been in the nose and out the tail, or in the tail and out the nose...making the plane both anode and cathode!

 

[sp53]

That is what a condenser does, it absorbs the static electrons. My suggestion is to take some duct tape and a couple of condensers and tape them right below the windshield and that should stop the spark. At least that is what the condenser does in the distributor. Anyone ever see the movie “Mind Walk” it will really get you thinking because all this talk of atoms and electrons might not be true. It is more of a probability than a reality. The periodic table just puts stuff in a nice little mathematical theoretical box. The best kept secret in the Western World is that science is Philosophy!

 

[Geo Hahn]

...My suggestion is to take some duct tape and a couple of condensers and tape them right below the windshield and that should stop the spark...

Ooooh -- that's just what I want to see on the front of the plane when I'm boarding: Duct Tape!

 

[CJD]

Condenser...Hmmmm....so what we need is a lot of fa, I'm sorry - weight challenged, passengers to absorb the greatest number of electrons!

I knew we could hijack this topic into something useful...

Sorry Afro!?!

 

[Afrodesia]

This is great. I had my questioned answered (I assume) & great advice given (will try suggestions first so I can do a lil' learnin' then I'll jus git myself a new battry probly ; )


I already like this place...Lots of IQ floating around. I ask & get a bunch of great responses right away. I wish real life was the same...a girl could get pampered like this!

 

[DanB]

Ok, I admit I skipped through a bunch of the really technical discussion, so what I am about to ask may have been covered, but....

Did you take a voltmeter and check the battery? If it is charged backwards it will read negative. Also, with the car running you can check the charging system that way too.


Dan B.

 

[CJD]

I just want a ride when your done!

 

[TR6oldtimer]

So it could have been in the nose and out the tail, or in the tail and out the nose...making the plane both anode and cathode!

No, just a conductor.

Sorry, I just could not leave it alone.

Hey Aphrodisia, I find a girl with a 59 TR3 attractive. I am single and could pamper you both... :banana:

 

[CJD]

No, just a conductor.

Sorry, I just could not leave it alone.

Aaah, it would seem! Except we know that the material from the nosecone was removed, likely deposited back on Mother Earth making the nose the anode. And if soot was deposited - from, say, the nose of another plane - on the tail, we have a cathode.

Given the choice, though, I would preffer to be a conductor, hindered not with gain or loss...

Returning to the original point, though, even with miles of spark ahead, I could still not tell with authority which way the spark passed...

...and I still think the coolest part is that we are driving a car that can be charged backwards and still function. That's just one more cool thing about these cars!

 

[Sarastro]

iI've arrived late at this discussion, but a couple of points might clear things up.

First, I hadn't ever thought about this, but it appears that one could indeed charge a battery backwards. When a lead-acid battery is completely discharged, both plates are coated with lead sulphate. When it's charged, one plate is lead, the other lead oxide. The battery works by conversion of the lead and lead oxide to the sulphate.

So, it seems clear that, once it's discharged, you could charge it up either way. Almost certainly, the battery is designed to be charged one way; battery design is a bit more complicated than my simplifications. But I suspect it can be done.

Second, electric current consists of the diffusion of free electrons in a metal. (movement of "holes" applies to semiconductors, but let's not get into that.) Some slight movement of the positive metal ions can happen, but it is not a component of ordinary current. It causes electromigration, which is seen in very small structures with high current densities. The reason for the idea of current moving from positive to negative was developed long before the electron was discovered--I believe that Benjamin Franklin first proposed it. He recognized intuitively that a current involved the movement of some kind of substance, and he hypothesized that the positive pole had an excess and the negative pole a deficit of that substance. I don't know for sure how he got the idea that electricity involved movement of a substance, or figured out which pole had the excess, but I can guess. If you put a pencil point, or other object in a spark, the spark often appears only on one side, and it looks like the motion of a substance in a particular direction.

By time the electron was discovered, all the laws of electricity had been formulated with the idea of positive-to-negative current. As Randall said, it doesn't matter what you use, as long as it is consistent.

 

[DanB]

Yes, you can charge a battery backwards. My dad did it on his Ford tractor by accident when I was a kid.

Dan B