At least a jump ahead
Breathes there a man with battery dead, who never to himself has said,
“Christ, I hope I didn’t hook up the jumper cables backwards”?
Looks like Michelin gets credit for the answering of this prayer:
Instead of the usual color-coded clamps for your battery’s positive and negative terminals, the cables are all Michelin blue. Halfway down the cable is a box of electronic smarts. Just put one clamp on the positive terminal of the battery and the other on any piece of bare metal and the electronics will detect whether you’ve made a complete circuit and illuminate an LED on the central box. When the second battery is connected, the electronics automatically determine the polarity and switch it as needed.
Neat. Not only does it keep you from running the wires backwards, but it helps you find a proper ground.
Thirty to forty bucks, or about twice what you’d pay for dumb cables, or about one-twentieth what you’d pay for a fresh new engine-control module.
fillyjonk »
22 March 2010 · 2:43 pm
And I can guarantee you there’s gonna be someone out there complaining on their blog about how this further dumbs-down the driving experience and lets the idiots win. Or something.
Me? I’m off to see where I can order a set. Though as I am getting a NEW CAR soon, I hope not to be needing them, other than maybe as a way of helping out other folks.
LeeAnn »
22 March 2010 · 2:48 pm
I need those. As respectful/terrified I am of all things electrical, and as unhandy as I am, they can only do good for me.
Unless I trip over them, fall headfirst into the engine, and get chopped to bits. That’s never a good thing.
Dick Stanley »
22 March 2010 · 6:24 pm
It’s the terrorists who will win. Somehow. I must deny ever having asked myself if I did it backwards. It happens so rarely, paying attention is not a problem. But I realize others need the help, and so, it’s nice to see the market come to the rescue.
Brian J. »
23 March 2010 · 7:10 am
An electrical system subject to failure to replace something that is dumb but works every time if you know how to use it and use it correctly?
Someday, we’re all going to be tripping all over the place when our shoe fastening modules brick after a botched security software update.
CGHill »
23 March 2010 · 7:57 am
I can assure you, people are not clamoring for Windows in their shoes.
soubriquet »
23 March 2010 · 2:58 pm
What can I say? Every car battery I have ever seen, also truck, tractor, airplane and submarine battery has had the internationally approved (+ for positive, – for negative) markings moulded into its body.
Furthermore, jumper cables are ALWAYS coded with the ends in red for positive, black for negative, and often carry the +- symbols too.
(Always, that is, unless they’re blue, michelin, and omnipolar.)
If you can’t grasp such a simple concept as connecting the matching symbols, and/or the matching colours, then you should not be messing with jump leads anyway. Or anything sharp enough to cut you.
Let a grown-up do it.
Jeffro »
23 March 2010 · 3:54 pm
@ soubriquet- while I mostly agree with you in theory, in practice it’s a bit more difficult. Most batteries that give up the ghost and need jumping are by definition not brand spanking new, clean, and easy to read. Usually, they are covered in a greasy, dirty coating that obscures any markings, plus this happy moment isn’t necessarily in the best of lighting conditions. Which is why I clean off the surface to find the symbol and carry a flashlight to see – but finding the correct terminals on a neglected battery isn’t always so easy.
I’m more in favor of jumping terminals mounted away from the battery in the first place. My pickup has the positive terminal mounted mid-cable in it’s own sealed box and the ground tab is on the alternator mount. Some of the semis I’ve driven have posts mounted on the frame near the starter fairly far away from the multiple batteries.
This solution makes more sense to me than the cigarette lighter plugin types – I’ve always wondered just how long that process would take to get a jump start.