What Happens if You Connect a Battery to an Inverter without pre-charging the Capacitors? 

If you have installed car audio before, that spark is very familiar 😂

Would be nice if you showed how to connect the resistor!

That explosion is a bad night of beans close to a campfire. 😂

Turn inverter off. There should be no load on inverter when hooking up battery

Or you can just not have it grounded (negative terminal) when you connect to positive side like any other type of DC connection

Never had this problem with any inverter but okay, I just make sure the power switch on the inverter is in the off position before I hook it up.

12V is too little, 48V is WAY bigger spark

Don't worry about that tiny spark😂

Nope just connect it

Overkill Just hooking up a battery to the car cables causes a tiny spark! Hell even hitting your driver at night causes a tiny spark. People are starting to make things more complicated these days to make themselves believe they’re more intelligent.

So why they don't ever mention this when you buy a inverter or why they don't send it in the box

Stop being a baby a little spark never hurts

Sharpen a number 2 pencil on both ends, does the same thing as a resistor

When I plug in my phone charger it produces the same spark !

lol 😂not gonna lie the atom bomb animation was not expected, but it was appreciated 😅

It’s not just about the spark damaging the lug, terminal, or nut. The inrush current can damage the inverter and or the battery BMS if your using lithium.

Never worried about it. Its about the same size of spark you get when you recconect a vehicle battery. Much ado about nothing. If it was that important to do so, the instructions would mention it.

Do that with a 48-volt inverter

😂😂 the explosion edit 👌🏾

It’s actually to keep from hurting your equipment.

That looks like something I’ll see when I plug something in an outlet at my grand parents house

At 12 volts there isn't much going on unless there is a short to begin with. I've never used a resistor. But with higher voltage I will try to remember to use the resistor first. Ooops I forgot when I hooked up my 24 volt inverter and nothing much happened. The spark is only a little bigger. I'm guessing I would have to use a resistor when I hook up to a 48 volt battery for sure.

Only ever had one inverter, it has an off switch. Hooking it up while off gas prevented this

With my 50V R/C helicopter setup with an extra ultra low ESR cap in front of the ESC, now that made a spark. It would make divots in the connector and I would have to use Deoxit cleaner to clean the crud off of the connectors created by the huge sparks as it would make it very hard to disconnect and act as an insulator on the connectors. One time instead of a loud pop, there was a loud bang because one of the ESC caps blew with a 1 ft flame shooting out of it. My ears were still ringing 45 minutes later from that bang. After that, I wired in a spark elimination circuit, just a resister to charge the caps and reprogrammed the ESC to have a preset cell count instead of auto-detect as the few moments to took to charge the caps would throw off the auto-detect of cells. But yeah, something like this is a lot easier on the equipment and will save your connectors. Just be careful to not reverse polarity.

Is it just me but it's been a few years since I got a spark. I'm connecting the positive first and...I don't remember a spark...and if it was ...I couldn't tell

I've connected many 12 and 24 volt inverters many times and never had any damage occur. Sure, it sparks a little, which can cause you to soil yourself if you are not specting it, and you can even get a small burn if your finger is near the spark, but It ain't gonna kill you. I have never seen it damage any inverter, the capacitors just draw a large current for a second or so, until they are fully charged, and they only draw as much current as they need. They should not explode if they are rated for the voltage and current specified to operate the inverter..

Rather than buy resistor that you probably only gonna use once a car headlight bulb works just as well you probably have got a spare one.

I bypass my inverter and turn it off, to enable me use direct nepa light, , please i wanna know will it still be charging after turning off the ups when there is nepa light? pls your assistance will be highly appreciated

YOU SHOULD DO GROUND AFTER POSATIVE

You know being an electrician it would be smarter to hook the wire up before hooking it to the battery seriously use your common sense

A 48v 8000 watt would be like shorting a 5000 watt amplifier capacitor

Something else to keep in mind is to avoid sparks at the battery poles, especially if it is a lead acid battery.

I use a 12 volt test light. When the light goes out, the capacitor is charged. Takes seconds.

Unnecessary

I've never had a problem connecting the battery... The connection snaps a little and then moves on

If you install the positive before installing the negative do you get the same spark?

Mine barely sparks certainly is going to blow up. Mine is 1650

Maybe just don’t go live you prepped dropkick 🤣😊😊

Use a carpenter's pencil, sharpened on both ends. Easier to come across than a big resistor

Very violent and it appears it momentarily bent time and space.

Why doesn't the manufacturer integrate this into the design in the first place?

It doesnt matter if it sparks, just touch it once firmly and tighten the connector

I hook mine up like that all the time I don't use the little resistor thing never have😂

Or you could just use a switch between the battery and inverter..

I usually use a small 12 volt bulb. the bulb starts out bright, then, dims down. If you mistakenly connect the inverter backward, the bulb remains full bright, indicating that the capacitor is not charging, and without damage to the inverter. Connecting the inverter to the battery out of polarity is disastrous! A resistor is fine, but, you really can't tell when the capacitors are fully charged, and it isn't quite as obvious if the polarity is reversed. The lightbulb will let you know if you didn't get a good connection as well.

My convertar it was 240v make smoke and now give 200v

It sparks because it's charging a dead wire Sending current

I have never heard of a resistor charging anything, but I have heard about DISCHARGING capacitors with resistors. Am I missing something?

Connect your negative it’ll be a smaller spark or no spark

Or you can just , shut it off. Connect it and turn it on. I mean common sense.

Just 12 v. Stick your tongue to it champ 😂

I have mine on a Anderson plug take out and put in my car as needed

Are you really discharging the capacitors?

Whoa !!! , almost like you are welding 😂.

Resistors especially since the disappearance of Radio Shack stores which I hope Trump brings back are too difficult to get and besides the spark Is caused by the capacitors charging up

Never used to resistor in my life and neither does anybody else.

Install the positive first then the negative so there is zero potential.

it's unnerving but unnecessary for smaller systems.

This is why u have to have a battery cut off switch, duhh

With Large Inverters you will get a much larger spark and can burn out the board. Ask me how I Know.

*a 12volt light bulb will precharge it.*

Resistor? I hardly know her.

Add a kill switch in the middle in the first place.

You should install battery first 😂

Not too bad if you're only connecting it once and leaving it there

Just turn it off, hook it up and turn it on!

Fast short tap tap tap x3.. it will be fine

I pre charge mine using a 9 volt battery,

I don't like it

Me i always use a testlight to charge it😅

Never mind a resistor, what about a tri-pod to avoid motion sickness...???

That means the negative cable is connected.

So, there's a spark. Big deal.

Nonsense,

Positive goes on before the earth wire,

To much going on in ya head 🤦

What size resistor is needed

A 16 kw inverter opens a time vortex

Why not use a lil AA batterie to charge the capacitor? I'm new to that?

Oooooh! Scary spark.

I've found that the internal resistance of the battery is usually enough to keep the spark relatively small and undamaging. However, what will make an abhorrently large spark, and likely damage the capacitors in the process, is to connect a power source with already-charged capacitors, such as a battery with another inverter already connected, to the inverter. This will connect the almost zero-resistance capacitors together, resulting in 1/2*CV^2 worth of energy being directly deposited in the spark!

😂 I jumped in my bunker!! 😂

If you have accidentally shorted a car battery you know how bad it.can.be

12v inverters are pretty tame if compared with 51v inverters or similar systems.. i've heard people say that you can damage the capacitors if connected without pre charging for the higher voltage based systems.. it is said that the high inrush currents might damage the capacitors.. I've never tried it. I haven't had the chance to work with these high voltage systems.. 51v dc is scary

Any 12v bulb in series will do it

It cracked me up the nuke going off, I've been doing electronics for well over 20 years as a hobby. I was doing a installation and a basic re wire on a camper. Now all was going perfectly until the owner decided to turn the inverter on and plug stuff into it without telling me, when I hooked up the leads well blew a hole in the battery post, many swear words was used 🤣🤣.

Why is the negative cable connected before the positive?

You never show how to use the resistor, disliked

The sparks aren’t much for a small inverters. It’s them 5kva and 10kva that you will get a really big spark. But it doesn’t damage anything it’s just a convinces thing

When that explosion happened, the unsubscribe confirmation box popped up. Lol

Impiccate

Oh noooo!!!! A spark!!!

Lol😊

You connect it in series or parallel connection?🙋🇬🇷

I thought that using the resistor releases the energy stored in the capacitors and this energy is shown as a spark. You repeated state that the resistor precharges the capacitors while just the opposite is happening.

Or a fuse...

I like the spark lol

Baby spark...

If you hold the lug just barely off the stud for 10 seconds it will pre charge it. No need for a resistor. Use the air as a resistor.

Dont be a girl about it