Jump to content

Engine won't start!


RichM

Featured Posts

Frustrating but also fixed! 

22 minutes ago, RichM said:

All is OK now. Turned out to be a bad earth in an awkward place!

Did you not end up with a lead from negative onto the block? Glad it's sorted anyway.

 

Daniel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It does demonstrate the difficulties of diagnosing at a distance, the earth was supposed to have been bypassed with jump leads without any effect on the problem which logically eliminates the earth circuit from suspicion, but only it seems if one has done the crocodile clip and clean metal course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Sir Nibble said:

It does demonstrate the difficulties of diagnosing at a distance, the earth was supposed to have been bypassed with jump leads without any effect on the problem which logically eliminates the earth circuit from suspicion, but only it seems if one has done the crocodile clip and clean metal course.

Crocodile clips won’t really give you a good contact for the amount of amps needed to start the engine, and the cable in jump leads are thinner than thin.   Reason why I suggested above that a quick test is to use proper cables directly to/from the battery.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 19/08/2017 at 09:32, Sir Nibble said:

It does demonstrate the difficulties of diagnosing at a distance, the earth was supposed to have been bypassed with jump leads ...

Indeed

On 19/08/2017 at 10:04, Robbo said:

Crocodile clips won’t really give you a good contact for the amount of amps needed to start the engine....

I don't know. My experience is mainly with petrol, but I have started large van engines a smaller tractors with conventional jump leads, and a stone flat 3l petrol with £6 'max 1000cc' service station jump leads before now.

Daniel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure crocodile clips are good for a while - i.e. for starting an engine soon after fitting them.  But when used for charging batteries overnight in humid conditions, it's surprising how much white powder appears on the terminals.  It must also depend on how strong the springs are on the clips - some are fierce! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DHutch said:

Indeed

I don't know. My experience is mainly with petrol, but I have started large van engines a smaller tractors with conventional jump leads, and a stone flat 3l petrol with £6 'max 1000cc' service station jump leads before now.

Daniel

But you are going through a connected starter battery to do it, the bulk of the amps is still via the starter battery.

Edited by Robbo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 20/08/2017 at 22:12, Robbo said:

But you are going through a connected starter battery to do it, the bulk of the amps current  is still via the starter battery.

 

Sorry but I can't help but correct this erroneous use of the word "amps".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DHutch said:

Indeed

I don't know. My experience is mainly with petrol, but I have started large van engines a smaller tractors with conventional jump leads, and a stone flat 3l petrol with £6 'max 1000cc' service station jump leads before now.

Daniel

Use to start my Landrover and rangrover OK,both diesels

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Sorry but I can't help but correct this erroneous use of the word "amps".

 

If I put on a <pedantic hat>, and I 'erroneously' used the word voltage, would you replace the word with electric potential or electromotive force?

Or would 'ampage' be OK for current?

<pedantic hat/>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

'Ampage' would be ok, but still clumsy. "Amps is" grates so badly because it is grammatically wrong on two levels.

Ampage is not goodage because it ain't a word. 

Amperage (not ampage) is a word which was invented over the last few decades because folk are too lazy to say 'current rating' but I still hate it, probably because it was drummed into me at school that it wasn't a word. Nevertheless it's dropped into common usage so much that it now appears in some dictionaries, although not that of the IEEE: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4116787/

Wattage is another made up non-word that replaces 'power rating'. (See above link) 

Voltage is a word. 

Edited by WotEver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Mikexx said:

If I put on a <pedantic hat>, and I 'erroneously' used the word voltage, would you replace the word with electric potential or electromotive force?

As above, unlike 'ampage' Voltage is a word, so there's no trouble in using it. 

By way of example, I could refer to the floatyness of a boat if I so chose. It floats doesn't it?  That doesn't however make me correct in inventing a word when a perfectly good one - buoyancy - already exists. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 21/08/2017 at 05:09, WotEver said:

As above, unlike 'ampage' Voltage is a word, so there's no trouble in using it. 

By way of example, I could refer to the floatyness of a boat if I so chose. It floats doesn't it?  That doesn't however make me correct in inventing a word when a perfectly good one - buoyancy - already exists. 

 

But sir, SIR...

WHY is "ampage" not a word while "voltage" is?

 

And on a related note my kids throughout their childhood used the term "see-through" for "transparent", picked up from skool. Their mother and I disagreed about whether they should be corrected. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, WotEver said:

And on a related note my kids throughout their childhood used the term "see-through" for "transparent", picked up from skool. Their mother and I disagreed about whether they should be corrected. 

I would side with whomever was in favour of correction. Would they call something obscure "non-see-through"?  Or perhaps translucent should be "not-quite-see-through" :)

Edited by WotEver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For anyone interested in a serious answer to Mike's question of 'why?'...

Voltage is the thing being measured... in volts. EMF and PD are also both measured in volts. One would say that the EMF (or PD) of a circuit has a voltage of x volts. 

Current is the thing being measured... in amps. You are not measuring amperage. 

Power is the thing being measured in watts... you get the idea. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, mross said:

Wattage and Amperage are both proper words!

Says who?  I say they aren't. The IEEE doesn't list either of them (see link above) so who is stating that they are 'proper words'?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.