Would you try this?

[JDgreen]

That is the way I titled my experience back about 2004 on TBN, was doing some electrical work at home yesterday and it made me think of the story...

We had signed up for Direct TV, and the young fellow who showed up to install our dish and mount on the light pole wasn't very well prepared. He had a very poor quality ladder, so I offered to go get one of mine. He also had a Dewalt 12 volt drill with one flat battery, and no spare or charger, and no plug in corded drill. When I came back with the ladder, he had popped the hood of his S-10 and had a pair of jumper cables connected to his battery, and was wrapping 12 gauge wire from the jumpers to the battery clips on his drill to power it so he could drill holes for the mount.

I offered to provide one of my cordless or corded drills, and asked if he had ever used that hookup to power his cordless drill in the past. He said: "No, but isn't 12 volts 12 volts"? He took me up on my offer of a loaner drill, and I gave him a spare Dewalt charger I had no need for. He may have been right about 12 volts being 12 volts, but I value my tools too much to try something like his idea.

When I posted the story on TBN, one reply said the drill doesn't really care if the 12 volts are coming from the battery or the Hoover Dam generators, but if you short something out doing it with the car battery you might get some welding experience....:laughing::laughing:

 

[RobertBrown]

Yes, as a last resort, as long as the connections looked good however I would disconect the battery from the vehicle using the positive lead.
I knew you weren't going anywhere

 

[JDgreen]

Yes, as a last resort, as long as the connections looked good however I would disconect the battery from the vehicle using the positive lead.
I knew you weren't going anywhere

You know I wasn't going anywhere...? How's that?

 

[BGC]

I wouldn't do it since I have had to much experience with electricity and don't ever want to get shocked again. I don't care what the voltage. This is exactly why I buy extra battery packs and such for all of my tools.

 

[Ric]

I wouldn't do it since I have had to much experience with electricity and don't ever want to get shocked again. I don't care what the voltage. This is exactly why I buy extra battery packs and such for all of my tools.

I wouldn't do that either, battery packs are not that expensive he shouldn't be that
​

 

[JDgreen]

I wouldn't do it since I have had to much experience with electricity and don't ever want to get shocked again. I don't care what the voltage. This is exactly why I buy extra battery packs and such for all of my tools.

I have done major electrical work in my lifetime but only got one bad jolt in all that time, and it wasn't my fault. When I moved here back in '89 the service panel was 60 amp with fuses and a separate fuse box for the electric range, the tenant who rented the house blew a range fuse and it didn't have a spare, so he pulled the block of fuses and wrapped the blown fuse in HD aluminum foil and put it back into the panel, I wanted to replace the blown fuse and when I pulled the block out the overlapping foil had energized the metal handle of the block, I was standing on a dry board on the dry concrete floor but it still gave me one heckuva jolt...every since then whenever I am temped to take a shortcut with electrical work or hurry by doing something like a careless splice or connection I think back to that jolt and am a lot more careful....

 

[BGC]

That sounds like my house. The man who owned my house before me was the sheriff of my town. He took every shortcut possible with this place. Including PVC on the Gas Line.

 

[Tractor John]

12 Volts D.C. is the same no matter where you get it. Proper polarity should be observed if trying to charge or "jump" another battery, + to +, - to -. If there are no other batterys in the sysrem and you reverse the polarity, the device will run in reverse. If you reverse them on a vechicle you risk the chance of "blowing" the alternators diodes" and any other polarity sensitive devices.

I'm speaking from 30+ years as a heavy equipment mechanic.

 

[JDgreen]

12 Volts D.C. is the same no matter where you get it. Proper polarity should be observed if trying to charge or "jump" another battery, + to +, - to -. If there are no other batterys in the sysrem and you reverse the polarity, the device will run in reverse. If you reverse them on a vechicle you risk the chance of "blowing" the alternators diodes" and any other polarity sensitive devices.

I'm speaking from 30+ years as a heavy equipment mechanic.

Great to hear from a well qualified tradesman, your input and advice will be very welcome here in LMF, hope to see you here frequently. Again, WELCOME to LMF.

 

[Rickpoolman]

That is the way I titled my experience back about 2004 on TBN, was doing some electrical work at home yesterday and it made me think of the story...

We had signed up for Direct TV, and the young fellow who showed up to install our dish and mount on the light pole wasn't very well prepared. He had a very poor quality ladder, so I offered to go get one of mine. He also had a Dewalt 12 volt drill with one flat battery, and no spare or charger, and no plug in corded drill. When I came back with the ladder, he had popped the hood of his S-10 and had a pair of jumper cables connected to his battery, and was wrapping 12 gauge wire from the jumpers to the battery clips on his drill to power it so he could drill holes for the mount.

I offered to provide one of my cordless or corded drills, and asked if he had ever used that hookup to power his cordless drill in the past. He said: "No, but isn't 12 volts 12 volts"? He took me up on my offer of a loaner drill, and I gave him a spare Dewalt charger I had no need for. He may have been right about 12 volts being 12 volts, but I value my tools too much to try something like his idea.

When I posted the story on TBN, one reply said the drill doesn't really care if the 12 volts are coming from the battery or the Hoover Dam generators, but if you short something out doing it with the car battery you might get some welding experience....:laughing::laughing:

There is a big difference between 12 volts coming from a battery and 12 volts coming from the Hoover Dam. The battery voltage is DC (direct current) and the Hoover Dam power is AC (alternating current). If you have a 12v dc hand tool, you would be wise to only connect it to a 12v DC source.