You would think I would know better having made a living in electrical engineering and an 8 year tour of electrical avionics work on jet aircraft. But I made yet another entry into my book of "Stupid Things to Never Do Again"

3 weeks ago I was preparing to take the RV out to Texarkana for a few day music pickin festival with my wife. The battery on the RV is over 4 years old, figured I better change it out first prior to leaving. So we go to the storage site to take the old battery out, then over to the battery place to get another and turn the old one in.

So, we get to the RV, I remove the battery cover and the Plus and Minus terminals are exposed. I have a 6" crescent wrench in my left hand and begin to loosen the battery postive terminal. In my mind I made sure to keep the wrench strokes away from the Negative terminal.

But, I forgot that the Aluminum treadplate nearby was still connected to the Negative terminal - GND.

On the second swing of the wrench, my hand brushed the treadplate. I had my Wedding band of 45 years on that hand on the ring finger of course.

Well, sparks flew mightily when my ring hit the treadplate since the Crescent wrench was contacting my Ring in my hand on the underside.

My wife screams, I am in bewilderment as to what happened. Then I intstanteneously felt the intense heat of my Ring burning my finger. I quickly pulled it up the finger but it was tight at the knuckle. I saw the blistered skin and knew I was in for a bad day. My wife poured water on my finger and I got the ring off. Some of the skin sloughed off. I put the ring in my pocket and finished removing the battery.

Then a phone call to the Doctors office. He could see me asap so I drove there and they said some 2nd and minor burns. Gave me some silver sulfaniziamide or something cream for it.

It healed up fine no real problems. I had to take the ring to the Jeweler for repair. There were two damage locations. One the melting U shape where the wrench touched it. One arcing and aluminum intrusion into the gold where the ring hit the treadplate.

$150 to have the ring fixed. I told them I only paid $80 for ring in 1974. And, I was 1 striper in the USAF. I had to buy mine and my wifes ring on credit.

But they did a terrific job fixing it.

Some pics:

Battery in RV, note treadplate and positive terminal.



Damage to the ring:






Oucheee




Healed up and ring fixed

Just because you’re an engineer doesn’t mean your smart...JK Bob.

one set of trolling motor batteries ago , I was making the last connection on the last battery, my wrench touched the opposite terminal ,
( I was lying under the console ) battery exploded and caught fire briefly. I was shocked (literally ) and scared , but unhurt.
I did it again with less disastrous results recently. ( no explosion or fire , just some sparks and a nicked wrench) I need to look at non conductive wrenches for working for installing batteries .


MO

Ouchie. What a helpless feeling that must have been when the ring would not come right off.

no doubt! Hindsight is 20/20 they say. The right thing to do was disconnect the -minus terminal first.

Oweee! Been there done that.

Don't you love how the mix colors on RV wiring?

Oh dang Bob! You should not become a part of the resistance!
I know dad worked with a guy that lost his finger that way. Working on a starter and arced it. Glad things a re healing up nicely.

Yeah, the ring fits loose below the knuckle but it got stuck at the knuckle. Thanks to my wife's quick thinking to pour water on it, it was cool enough to pull off. There were Safety photos all over the USAF aircraft hangars and if we were found working on planes with jewelry on, we were written up by QC. So I didn't wear it for the 8 years in. A lot of folks tell me they have non conductive rings now. But this one means something to me. Now it has a story to go with it.

For sure, lots of safety photos where high voltage burned down to the bone and lost fingers.

Oh no. It happens real fast.

That’s an ouchie

Yeah, red and black and white for gnd. Weird right? The inverter in the RV charges the battery when AC is plugged into it and the truck charges the RV battery when it is connected to the truck through the trailer connector.

Oh yeah. Funny how quick your brain gets the signal when your ring becomes white hot.

It’s amazing how long it feels when that stuff is happening. I had a crescent wrench where I did the same thing. It was arcing and sparking, and I had my face hanging down into the boat. I tried to pull the wrench off, and it was welded to it. I then yanked about as hard as I could, and it popped off finally, right before it reached about 1000 degrees.

I’m sure the whole thing took 3-5 seconds, but it seemed like I was hanging my face into that inferno for 10 minutes. A few minutes later I walked inside, and my wife asked how the project went. I said it was fine.

things like this happen from time to time.