Gizmodo
Gary Cutlack loves to "review" batteries, which is why he's doing the world a service by testing what happens when you put batteries in the wrong way into a flashlight. Except he calls it torch. That's right, he's British, which along with Stuart Ashen's video earlier, officially makes this dry British humor day here at the Giz. [Tech Digest]
What Happens When You Put Batteries in the Wrong Way?
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4:00 PM on Fri Feb 8 2008
By Jason Chen
8,205 views
81 comments
Comments
"im goig to...disregard the manufacturers safety instructions." wow, sounds like a great idea!
I've done this myself many times, but without ANY safety precautions... euro pansys
Flipping the electrochemical cell didn't do anything.
What. The. Hell.
I feel quite a bit stupider after watching that. Thanks Giz.
Sheesh. Get on with it. For any that want, you can skip to the last minute to see that absolutely nothing happens.
So 4 minutes later and nothing happens. Very droll.
You know what would have been funnier than nothing?
ANYTHING!
@Lorne: LOL
I just skipped to the end, so it was still funny to me.
It was a joke, he knows that, you all should know that, he took his time and used caution on purpose, that's what makes it funny. The accent helped too.
Yeah, who hasn't done this before?
In a digital apparatus, or a charger, it is more important to follow instructions.
I had a friend who had a non rechargeable battery blow up in a charger. Acid all over her face, but it happened in the middle of the night and it was right over her face
This is horrible. And what's worse is that someone will see that and believe it.
@ninjamurf:
if you didnt know that nothing would happen then the jokes on you.
it was quite boring however, perhaps having him stand up to leave showing the cup 'supported ' would have been a good end to the video, or at least a fake explosion as he peers into the torch.
Okay, so if the british call a flashlight a torch, what do they call a torch?
Who hasn't accidently put batteries into something backwards? Turn it on, nothing happens, flip the batteries and you're off... Idiot...
after that montage of "right way, wrong way", i decided to buy a ticket to england so i can beat that unfunny asshole with a torch right up to the edge of death.
it annoyed me so much that i actually yelled "shut the fuck up" at the screen.
@homerjay: a flame stick?
word craziness aside, that was pretty damn funny on account of the fact that we all knew the outcome. funny stuff
Four and a half harrowing minutes with the "battries" the 'wrong way around'. Ah, those crazy Brits.
OMG creepy british guy...that was an awesome montage "PUT THEM IN THE WRONG WAY ROUND'"
pretty funny, but annoying...
the contact at the bulb that usually touches the positive terminal(the side with the tabs) has a ring around the connector to keep the negative side of the battery from touching the terminal at the bulb...at least on most of my 'torches' so his flashlight should have worked, though that brings me to another point- with most flashlight bulbs, the polarity usually doesn't matter.
I just wasted four and a half minutes. greaet.
It would've been funnier if the High Chancellor Seplar was screaming these same lines through the big screen, or Protherow yelling this British O'Reilly style. Some bloody twit dryly talking to the camera with a torch does little to twix me funnybone guvnuh.
Slow Gizmodo day... Lets surf on YouTube for content...
This is what should have happened:
[i144.photobucket.com]
4.5 minutes of life I'll never get back.
WOW, I was expecting a big boom but I got nothing.
OMG I wasted my F-ing time for that I was hoping for an explosion. What a waste of front page blogging
The only time this is an issue is with electronics designed by someone who is simultaneously smart enough to design electronics, and stupid enough to forget to put a friggin 0.1 cent diode in.
I need to get the contact address for Gizmodo so I can file a class action suit to get 4 minutes and 37 seconds back for everybody who watched that. If you wish to opt out of this class action suit please erase your memory.
He should have used a few car batteries daisy chained together. I'm sure we would have had a little more to see!
Man, that could have been 30 seconds long, considering the only funny parts were the protection cup and the end result.
Well there's 4.5 minutes I'll never get back.
Charlie bit me.
@ all the people that complained about losing 5 mins, u just lost another 1 or 2 posting a message GJ
what an absolute berk, nothing happens if their in the wrong way round nothing at all
in fact sas and special forces do this to make sure emergency flashlights don't turn on by accident
"Let me put my genitals in a cup." I am using that line tonight.
What's with all the hate in here? I thought it was funny. A face shield and genital protector? No? Not funny?
But you comments about wasting 4-5 mins of your life are contributing to society how?
Threatening violence against someone who's only offense is trying to humour you? Granted, the haircut and teeth were a tad offensive, but c'mon, he's a Brit!
See what I did there? I'm American, but spelled it humour. I've got more for you pretentious pricks: Lift, flat, favourite, Aluminum.
Is that funny enough for you, jerk-face?
Boring.
One time I accidentally put regular batteries into a charger for rechargeable ones. A couple hours later I heard a strange gurgling sound coming from my bathroom...
Wow...I really didn't realize that Gizmodo readers had zero sense of humor.
ahhhhh damn I want my 5 mins back, yes you heard me 5 mins.
4 mins 37 seconds to watch the video, and then 23 more to give myself a wedge for being dumb enough to watch it.
Now this would have gone over much better on here if he had actually resoldered it so that the thing made a circuit when he turned it on or rigged an M80 into it somehow to ad some pie in the face action.
FUCK YOU! WASTE OF FUCKING TIME!
@User_00.1: Hmm, let's see: All-Caps, no sense of humour, lack of tolerance and an apparent mental age of 3. This is why I vote to ban you!
@User_00.1: Senator Craig? Is that you?
Wow lot's of originality from the posters here, 5-6 "You owe me X amount of minutes of my life" messages, very clever.
I liked it I thought it was funny.
I don't know what's wrong with you people, but I can tell within the first few seconds of a video whether I'm going to enjoy it or not. If I get the sense that I'm not going to like it I DON'T WATCH IT.
While I do understand the purpose of the vid it is still important to point out that some high end flashlights that are optimized for long runtime and output can actually be destroyed by turning the batteries the wrong way round. But then again people who buy those types of flashlights (HI!) know this so meh.
The only part that was really funny to me was when he said he was putting his genitals in a cup.
I also find farts to be very funny as well.
I am 30.
Okay, now put the batteries in the right way and see if the light still works. He could have damaged a semiconductor.
A man, 2 batteries, and a cup.
@User_00.1: Why do you want to kill cigarettes ? (us Brits call cigarettes fags!)
why doesn't the light come on with the batteries backwards?
Very boring, but someone smart enough would realize that this is going to do nothing. I still watched it, figuring the fire extinguisher was there for a reason. Call me stupid.
I am VERY disappointed, HOMERJAY: you should know they're called king-sized flamers. Speaking of, I think this guy was cuter with his goatee.
kids in the hall rip
never put salt in your eye
Wrong way round!
It's echoing in my damn head now.
Thanks a bunch, Giz. :(
Regular old fillament bulbs don't need a specific polarity to produce light. I'm talking your generic flash lights that are no more complex than a couple of copper conductors attaching either side of a series of batteries to either contact on the bulb.
As mentioned before, most flashlights are designed so that the batteries can only make proper contact when inserted "the right way round", because of the shape of the positive and negative terminals on the battery.
If the flashlight made use of LEDs, or used circuitry with some sort of diode, the "experiment" would fail in the electrical sense as well as the physical sense.
Did anyone notice the genital protector he was using? a plain coffee cup. Does he do the testing without pants on? come on now...
[www.engadget.com]
I thought it was one of these. And you could understand all the precautions if it was one of those flashlights. In the end though, lame.
i was going to leave a comment but I've changed my mind
I learned that crapo when I was 3 years old_
I figured nothing would happen, but it's not stupid to think it might have. Changing the polarity can kill many devices or cause other kinds of disastrous problems. Basic physics will tell you that. *Most* consumer electronics have protections against this, but not all of them. I've built some small devices and I can guarantee that changing the polarity DOES kill components. Heck, plug in a laptop power adapter with the wrong polarity and you can easily kill the mobo.
Wow, this is the worst video I have ever seen. I figured that the flashlight would not work back when I was a kid. For shame giz.
weird.. freaky.. but hilarious.. haha..
"a cup to my genitals.." haha!
@frndlybnny: Oh you're retardant. :)
Anybody else feel like they just watched a combination of Forest Gump and Mr. Wizard? </