Just did a stupid thing..... connected the fast charger to the wrong terminals on my battery and tried to start..very hot, lots of sparks.....possible to do any lasting damage?

The 'kahdmus syndrome' strikes again, I know..I KNOW!

 

your clock will start going backwards due to reversed polarity and you will have 5 reverse gears and 1 forward.....

next time

 

Dear Scamper, very droll comments, thank you. TBH, I don't think its a case of reading the manual; I have used my charger 00's of times. I was rushing and have no idea how I reversed the polarity. in fact I didn't believe it when I saw it!!!

 

What is the ampere rating for the charger? As long as your battery is still stronger than the charger, you did not reverse polarity on anything in the car. If the charger is stronger than the battery, you could have reversed polarity on some sensitive electronics. Most of the time that causes damage, but I don't know any specific examples in the 964. Where did you see sparks/smoke? With any luck, all you damaged was the charger and possibly the battery.

My charger is "reverse polarity protected". I am not sure what that means, but I have not yet tested it.

 

I believe that reverse polarity protected means that the charger will not output a voltage until it first verifies that the terminals are on correctly. So it will not output a voltage 1) unless it is connected to a battery (i.e. measures a voltage), and 2) the voltage has the right polarity. This is how my trickle charger works. Cheap integrated circuits, aren't they great.

Kahdmus,

Was it a trickle charger, or a normal high current charger that you connected to your battery? I wouldn't think that a low power trickle charger would cause any damage, but I also wouldn't expect any sparks either.

 

Actually.....it was a starter/charger. Not sure if it has any built-in protection. Sparks at terminals and slightly melted plastic croc-clip covers.

Mainly I was wondering if there were any sensitive components that could be damaged and yet would perhaps not be immediately apparent.

The car is now running and all 'seems' ok.

This is the charger:
http://www.automotion.com/productpag...macher+Charger

 

Thanks for the replies btw guys..the reassurance is appreciated!

 

Check to see if the alternator is still working .

On the upside , you will probably never do that again .

 

Hey! Great news. Glad it's back up and running.

 

I did that on my MGA which has a positive ground and fried my radio in a few seconds.

I have no idea what damage would be caused to a Porsche.

 

I am sure I read somewhere that you aren't suposed to use quick chargers/starters on a 964 battery when fitted? Can't think where I read that? The manual?

 

No Indy...I probably could, lol! :P

I hook it up as a trickle charge almost every weekend and it wasn't a case of not knowing which terminal was which. I had just found out 5 minutes earlier that my son had busted my laptop and so was probably distracted by reading him the riot-act while hooking up the charger. (Its just one of those things...like putting on odd socks or placing the cereal in the refrigerator and the milk in the cupboard!)

 

Other than the clock, doesn't current first have to pass through the ignition switch? If so, I'd want to pull both and check for any damage.
I *always* disconnect the terminals, even with a trickle charger. I'm prone to do the same as you, and it's a quick safety check.

Noah

 

Hey Howard!! Glad to see you're back in action (in more ways than one!!! )

 

I did the same once before as well. I was rushing to try to get it started after a few weeks of sitting, to take if for a ride with a fellow P Car owner and mine sparked as well. I actually didnt realize that I hooked it up wrong and then I plugged in the charger and started to talk to my P Car buddy and then noticed the sparks. (few seconds at best)

I felt like a complete jackass... Anyhow.....I did not find anything wrong and I was using a heavy duty Sears battery charger... (dont know if it has reverse protection....Its about a 12 year old charger)

I checked a lot of things and alll seemed well. This was about 2 years ago.

Hope this answers your questions.

Me =