5 ms·

Correct. It is total power delivered. You can still short 48V wires and start a fire with high enough current.

• jessaustin 12y ago
  Yes, most car-battery injuries are burns from inadvertent tool shorts. Always disconnect the negative post first, and connect it last. EDIT: yes I'm sure. As wtallis suggests, isolation is important. But while the battery is still connected, there is no isolation. In that configuration, if you have a tool on the positive terminal connector and it strikes any other conductive component of the car, that's a short, which could heat the tool and burn you (among other things). If instead you follow my advice and disconnect the negative terminal first, when striking e.g. a fan pulley your tool is simply an additional connection from the frame to ground, which has no effect. (After you've disconnected negative, a connection from positive to the frame is not a short.)
  • jimmaswell 12y ago
    Are you sure that isn't backwards?
    • sopooneo 12y ago
      I was thinking that too, until I remember that current flows from the negative terminal. Electrons have a negative charge. Because when Ben Franklin was deciding what to call things, and made a guess about which way it flowed, he guessed wrong.
  • wtallis 12y ago
    Negative vs. positive doesn't matter. What matters is that you isolate one of the battery terminals before doing further work. If you've got a single wire attached to the negative terminal and several attached to the positive, then the breaking the negative connection gets you the most safety in the least steps. If there's only one wire to each, it doesn't matter.