While making such devices, one should be grounded to reality to avoid making such mistakes
I once made a deadplug, I was kinda distracted and ended up with a cable with two male plugs. Hangs on my shop wall as memento for "focus on what you're doing" or something.
Yes yes fun fun. In real life, I have some pretty huge batteries and there is a handle on each but the handle is a non-conductive rope.
Considering that a 12V battery has an internal resistance of 20 milliohms, the potential current through this thing would be approximately 600A.
It might be too hot to handle (pun intended)
You can also get that from just the label. The CCA rating (cold cranking amps) is the max current that specific battery can supply in short bursts. 600 CCA is pretty typical, but I've seen up to 900 in the batteries I ship.
Is it really 600 amps? That seems rather high. I do know that the one time I shocked myself on a car battery, it rocked my world much more than getting shocked by a 110v outlet.
V = IR Assuming 12.6V 12.6 = I* 0.02 I = 630
So yeah, it could hit 600A, if only until it got hot enough to melt something or change the chemistry
They say amps are what kills you. It's not true. You need a trifecta of current, Voltage and resistance. And usually it has to go through your heart, causing an arrithmea. Though I have seen people get their hands blown off on a 400V system.
Your body has a very high resistance. If your hands are sweaty and you place them directly on a couple of 12V terminals you might get a tingle (I've done this several times on accident on 24V bateries).
That's why I always laugh at the movie trope of people being tortured with battery cables.
But there's more. Electricity takes the path of least resistance so in this case it would probably bypass your body altogether.
But as soon as you connect this you'll get a giant spark (basically how welders work). If that doesn't perturb you and you somehow successfully connected this, it would get REALLY hot and burn you before it shocked you.
It has been 20+ years since it happened, but I'm pretty sure I was standing in a little puddle, or my hands were wet (can't remember which), and my wrench just happened to bump the positive terminal and it was like "POW! Right in the brain!". Thankfully I didn't latch on or anything. It was instantaneous, and over in half a second, but it rocked my world for that half second or whatever it was.
Just remember to cut it when you dispose the battery, so that sea turtles won't get stuck in it.
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Obviously, Mehdi is an electrical engineer. The "dumb guy making things explode" is a persona he puts up to teach people about the dangers and wonders of electricity.
Say you made this, but insulated... does a car battery have enough structural strength in the terminals, though? I imagine you're left holding a handle with two terminals and half a cell stuck to each.
I work in an auto parts warehouse:
Yeah, they'd be fine. It's surprisingly difficult to break them apart. The load would spread out to almost the full width of the battery on either end (ie the plates attached to the terminals against the underside of the lid). Some of the models I ship use plastic straps that hook onto the seam between the lid and base and you can really toss em around before they take damage. (some people are less than gentle with parts :/ but I'm not the manager so 🤷)
Some of the larger batteries with screw terminals might not survive, but the ones where these clamp style are used would be fine.
Plastic isn't a conductor, so the current wouldn't travel between the posts across the handle.
Yes but it wouldn't short because the current from one terminal would not travel across the plastic handle to the other
I was making a joke using the metal handle and melting plastic, instead of using the plastic as the handle.
For anyone wondering beyond the meme, they make these clamp handles that hold batteries pretty well for moving them around.