nice tutorial, and nice website too...thanks!

This is the thing I don't understand...in high school, I always chanted the mantra "positive to positive, negative to ground". Maybe that's why I didn't have a lot of friends <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, the first time my father in law helped me do a jump start, he INSISTED that the negative terminals were connected to each other too. I felt it was wrong, but he's the type of person that you can't tell anything to. So when he was around, that's the way we did it.

So my wife left her lights on one day and drained the battery. My mother in law came with her car, and I hooked up the cables, using my old mantra. I was reasonably sure the battery was okay, but let it charge for five minutes or so. It was still as dead as dead can be...let it go for another five minutes...still nothing. Then instead of grounding the negative terminal on the dead car, I put the clamp on the negative terminal...a few seconds, and the car started right up.

I don't understand it, does anyone else?