Jump Start Car Guide
This is just a small guide of how to be a human for myself.
I always forget how to give a jump start for a car and needed it today again, so I wrote a short guide with my experiences here.
1. While traveling
You actually only need to connect the two + poles of the cars and the donors minus pole to the ground (at the broken down car for example). Most newer cars give you a hard time finding the correct poles under the hood of the car, as they provide separate ports which do not necessarily are at the battery itself (which sometimes is in the rear of the car). The battery itself is sometimes not accessible for the two clamps so the manual might help there…
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Connect the red cable to the positive (+) pole of the broken down car. Then connect the other end to the positive terminal of the donor car’s battery.
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Connect black cable to the negative (-) terminal of the battery of the donor car or to the specified ground point. Do not connect the black cable to the battery of a broken down car - otherwise there is a risk of sparks flying! Though it also works if you connect the black cable of the broken down car to some ground, you might see some sparks though.
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Start engine of donor car, if not already running
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Start the engine of the break-down car
Depending on how bad it is, you should wait a few minutes before starting it, if you just forgot to turn off the light, you can usually directly start the broken down car now. If the break-down car starts, you are usually good to go, though most internet guides suggest to wait for a few minutes as well.
I also once did connect minus and plus of two cars unintentionally, which did not break anything - after all it is only 12V for a short time on a battery which is empty anyway, but I might be too naive here. The battery still worked till now after getting a jump start once.
In general, one can not do a lot of wrong connecting the two batteries, if it does not work, the connection is probably not good though.
2. At home - car battery charger
I had the experience that some car battery chargers do not work when the battery is really low (tiefentladen). For some reason it helped to wait for a few hours and try again.
Otherwise, it might help to connect a second battery parallel and charge both that way for an hour then charge both individually.
Disclaimer
I am not a car mechanic, so don’t rely on what some random dude on the internet wrote.