Disconnecting Battery - wow! big spark

MFL wrote:
I have some spark when I disconnect my battery. I disconnect the neg first, and hook it up last.

My radio cannot be shut off, and then I also have the alarms. When I reconnect the battery, I get some arcing too. Does anyone know if this sparking can cause any damage to electrical components?

Thanks, Jerry

The risk that you take is if the battery is off gassing the spark can blow up the battery. That is why they tell you to ground jumper cable negative cables to an engine point not the battery negative terminal. Moves the spark away from the gassing battery.

While in the Coast Guard years ago I was working with the base engineer to jump start a Loran A station generator. The batteries were being charged from a charger in the control panel. I was at the next generator over and correctly connected the jump cables red to positive and black to negative. The engineer crossed his and the batteries blow up in his face.

I ran him outside an turn a hose on him, and he was ok!

So gassing batteries and sparks are NOT good. A marine style battery switch is sealed to prevent gas vapors from reaching the spark at connection or dis-connection.

Anyone getting a healthy spark should find out why and resolve that issue.

I too have a factory switch that only turns off some of the loads. So I installed two addition switches. One is a main disconnect and the other is for slides and jacks that I turn off while traveling or parked for extended periods.



200 amp fuse is for a Heart Freedom 10 inverter/charger. This great little inverter has been in two of our boats and now two trailers. It has a 50amp 4 stage charger, 1000 watt inverter and 30 amp auto transfer switch. Brought it back around 1991 for $465. Converter is only used when dry camping with Honda eu1000i generator with its own power inlet, the rest of the time the Freedom 10 does the charging.



Chris