Tightening Positive Battery Terminal, Hit Chassis and Shorted Out?

[peteandrewd]

Hey everyone. Bit of a silly noob question.
On my dirt bike, as I was tightening the positive battery terminal lead(it was loose), the allen key slipped and hit against the subframe causing a short and sparks everywhere, and causing the allen key to be extremely hot to touch.
It was only for a millisecond or 2, but I'm wondering if I would've done any damage to the electrical components of the bike(such as the alternator, rectifier/regulator, etc), or to the battery itself?
None of the fuses blew at all.
I was thinking that the short that happened, would be similar to having a non connected battery and simply shorting out between the positive and negative terminals, therefore it wouldn't of gone along the path where the fuses or any other electrical components run from, is that correct?

 

[plugsandsparks]

Most harm will be to battery,.... if it survived, happy days. Just charge it up or run the bike for an hour or two. You will know if something has broken as it will die.

 

[Marvo]

If it was a fairly quick short circuit the battery will probably survive, vehicle batteries are designed to deliver high current for short durations. As for collateral damage to other electronics it's impossible to say but I think it's pretty unlikely. The Allen key on the other hand.....

 

[peteandrewd]

The short happened before it reached any other components - pos, battery, alken key, negative terminal. I would think the path of the short was so little that it occured before it even reached any other components therefore the resistance of the other stuff didn't change?
There was no other components between the battery and the short.

 

[Marvo]

The only way you're going to find out is to finish the battery connection and try it, you're highly unlikely to cause any more damage doing this and testing individual components is a specialist job. If you have access to an intelligent type battery charger like an Optimate it can detect most battery faults and give you some idea of the battery condition. It's a good investment if you don't already have one. OptiMate UK

 

[PEG]

Hi dude,if it only contacted the frame,that is,ground (negative),it will have been no bigger shock to the battery,than attempting to start,whilst in gear,say if,electric start is fitted.

Indeed,grounding out the battery positive terminal,was the old plant drivers battery condition test! ...usually by using the 1/4" Whit snail brand spanner,left in the battery compartment.

...Do the same,on a new RangeRover...and the dash will resemble a NASA launch console...

 

[peteandrewd]

I think some of you guys are misunderstanding what happened.
Wouldnt the short I created be before the components or sensitive stuff? As the battery + is obviously before everything.
There are no components between the frame and battery post.
Therefore I wouldn't of pulled massive current through any electrical component, just the clamp, cable, frame, and wrench...?

 

[peteandrewd]

So therefore, how or why would the other components have damage if the short was well before the sensitive components?

 

[Darkwood]

Normally while you are playing with the battery it may be assumed the bike wasn't running thus a majority of the components were not energised anyway, for those that were (alarm, ignition circuit etc) can be pronr to transientsid if the contain sensitive components.

Think of your allan key for a second and the actual sparking, every time you get a spark you also get a massive surge in current and this can happen several times a second until the short is broken, its not always about the path of the current but sometimes can be about the spiking voltages the rest of the connected equipment would be subject to.

Like others have said, if your lucky everything will have survived as a majority won't be physically in circuit, the highest risk was to the battery itself as the high current and temperatures achieved can damage the internal cells, youo may find that the battery works ok but has issues with charging correctly, if you have a monitoring battery charger then use one as these will diagnose any issues with the battery.

 

[peteandrewd]

Normally while you are playing with the battery it may be assumed the bike wasn't running thus a majority of the components were not energised anyway, for those that were (alarm, ignition circuit etc) can be pronr to transientsid if the contain sensitive components.

Think of your allan key for a second and the actual sparking, every time you get a spark you also get a massive surge in current and this can happen several times a second until the short is broken, its not always about the path of the current but sometimes can be about the spiking voltages the rest of the connected equipment would be subject to.

Like others have said, if your lucky everything will have survived as a majority won't be physically in circuit, the highest risk was to the battery itself as the high current and temperatures achieved can damage the internal cells, youo may find that the battery works ok but has issues with charging correctly, if you have a monitoring battery charger then use one as these will diagnose any issues with the battery.

The bike has no alarm and ignition circuit is connected to the fuses which are connected into a solenoid. The battery is also a non acid type.
Everything seems to run fine, and battery voltage reads 12.6 volts when not running, 13.1 volts when bike is idling, and 14.0 volts when at 5000-6000 RPM.
I've connected my battery monitor to it twice, and the battery has only drained by 1 bar(5%) which could partly be due to cranking the bike over.

 

[Darkwood]

Forget about it then and happy riding ... just keep a check on its charge to make sure it is recharging ok just as a precaution.

 

[peteandrewd]

Why forget about it? Lol

 

[Darkwood]

It seems everything is working fine, battery seems ok so carry on as you were, so to speak is all I meant , yes I did contradict myself lol but I meant if you are still concerned then you can just check the battery a few times in the near future to check it is charging.

 

[peteandrewd]

Just out of curiosity. When you said a majority of the components were not energised anyway due to the bike not running at the time, does that mean that only the components that are active even when the bike is shut off are the only ones that would've been affected?
So for example, the alternator wouldn't be affected?
Is that also what you meant by majority of the components won't be physically in circuit?
Just trying to learn more about it.

 

[Marvo]

As you say, the components wouldn't have been in the circuit of the fault current so I'd expect the regulator, rectifier alternator etc to have been unaffected. Some bikes like BMW's have sensors on what's effectively a CANBUS network where all control components are addressable, these types of comms could possibly suffer damage from an incident like yours but if the bike is running and there's no engine management lights or error codes then everything sounds hunky dory.