Because you short the battery, cause a flash and a puff of smoke and probably spoil the pack. I know from experience!

Move to Open...

Nope, I can testify that it won't hurt the
battery a bit. The cutters will never be
the same though!

Startling isn't it? Also makes one feel
stupid afterwards. I know I did.

Dave

I did that to a fully charged 18x2000 pack before, it didnt hurt the cells, but the cutters were trash, but I took them back to Sears (Craftsman) and they gave me a new pair, I even told them what I did, the guy laughed and exchanged them for free.
Jeff

That sounds like a mistake you only make =ONCE=! I made myself a big note 'cuz that's something I would do.

Thanks
RB

Not quite the same but similar.

I once solder the motor caps on with the ESC and battery still plugged in. Needless to say my IQ dropped 200 points. Now I have a solder tip in such a bad sharp, it reminds me of the event.

Enjoy,
Charles

Been there and done that - have the arc pock marks on the knife blade to prove it. But the battery came through just fine.

How many electricians have cut through Romex with their diagonal cutters and instantly made a pair of strippers from them?

mw

I was going to say it Mark! I've done it a couple of times. Cut through Romex because I thought the power in the house was off. I've thrown a pair of pliers across a clients house almost breaking a window and swearing up a storm. Only to blush at my trusting ignorance. At least the batteries aren't 110.

Mains voltage here is 240V, so I tend to be VERY careful when doing any wiring work!

Many years ago my dad drilled through a live cable buried in a wall ... he was using a metal-bodied Black & Decker drill at the time. Very impressive pyrotechnics, and a big black hole in the wall. Luckily both dad and drill were OK afterwards

As an adjunct to this - if you are using the Hitec chargers which merely require you to plug the bare wire ends of your charging leads into the charging outputs, then it is a good idea to undo the plug and socket rather than take out the bare wire ends from the charger. These have an almost magnetic attraction for each other and when they find each other and mingle you have a melting burning pack literally on your hands.

Okay in my case it was only a 4.8V 500mah receiver pack but the melting plastic heatshrink still stuck to my hand and took a good shaking to get free, followed by much jumping on the pack to beat the thing to death

Funnily enough I'd just posted exactly Trev's advice to a poor chap stuck with Tamiya connectors on the BMFA forum - spooky.

Originally posted by leccyflyer:
As an adjunct to this - if you are using the Hitec chargers which merely require you to plug the bare wire ends of your charging leads into the charging outputs ...

Don't you put plugs on your charger leads???

Even so, your advice (connect charge lead to charger first) is spot on as it would still be possible to touch the banana plugs together. Less likely than with bare wires though!

I did this one with a car pack while building a car for the shop I worked for...No real damage to the cutters, but I was holding the pack in my other hand at the time, and the straps burned thru the heat shrink. Needless to say, I havent made that mistake again.

Later,
David

Bill

I do indeed have banana plugs on my charger leads but on my first old Hitec charger (that I don't really use since I got my Infinity) the outputs are two pairs of spring-loaded clips, rather than the banana sockets - one pair for battery charging and one for battery checking - and these had bare wires originally.

The wires were never removed for charging my eflight packs so it wasn't an issue, but then one day I decided to fast charge a receiver pack, with a Futaba plug. When the pack was charged I swapped the four leads (two for charging, two for the battery checker) back over to their original configuration and the thin "checker" lead of course had trailing bare wire ends- the rest of the story is above.

Painful memories - but not as hot as when I picked up the soldering stand by the coily springy thingy to put it away after a couple of hours soldering - OUCH

cheers

Brian

Brian, you have restored my faith in human nature ... I didn't know about the spring clip outputs, but had seen people using the sockets on the 330 and 335 to clamp bare wires. I didn't think a man of your calibre would be party to such bodging