high voltage shock from terminal on the solenoid to battery

[Beno]

I had a start switch go bad at the boat launch and had to trigger the solenoid manually. something I rarely do but when I did:
***POW** I got hit with thousands of volts .
I was standing in the water and I guess somehow I became the best ground path around!?

Anyway what I specifically did was had a open pair of pliers going from the battery (hot side) of the solenoid to the (yellow+red Stripe) small positive engagement threaded nut that goes to the start switch..

Should I assume this juice is from the stator trying to charge the battery?

 

 

[crosbyman]

any time you mess with relays  … like  a solenoid… the moment current drops….  the inner coil will try to maintain (hopelessly) the magnetic field it generated while it was energized..

In doing so  the  generated counter EMF will  kickback much like an ignition coil  fires a sparkplug.

Was it  “thousands of volts” ??? hard to say but it never feels good.   next time use insulated pliers !

 

 

from wiki…

the voltage appearing across an inductor or coil is due to a change in current which causes a change in the magnetic field within the coil, and therefore the self-induced voltage.<sup id=”cite_ref-Graf_1-1″ class=”reference”>[1]</sup><sup id=”cite_ref-2″ class=”reference”>[2]</sup> The polarity of the voltage at every moment opposes that of the change in applied voltage, to keep the current constant.<sup id=”cite_ref-Graf_1-2″ class=”reference”>[1]</sup><sup id=”cite_ref-3″ class=”reference”>[3]</sup>

 

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[crosbyman]

any relay loosing it’s power/magnetism  will kick you hard as it tries to maintain it’s magnetic field from collapsing.

called … back EMF  or counter EMF.

 

just fix the switch 🙂  keep fingers away.

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[Beno]

I was just surprised how I became a better target for the electrons (or the reverse flow of electrons depending on what theory you accept) than they battery.

if I disconnect the yellow wires to the stator, I would guess this effect would stop (along with battery charging)?

 

 

[crosbyman]

yellows go to a rectifier or rectifier regulator  then go to the  SOlenoid bridged on the B+ from the battery.

from the solenoid B+  one red goes to a fuse then  to the switch B+ post … usually

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[Beno]

actually my yellows branch off from the stator to the enricher and the rectifier at the same time.

an oddity I’m still trying to figure out. (I’m wondering if a previous owner didn’t make a tragic mistake somewhere )

[frankr]

crosbyman wrote:

any relay loosing it’s power/magnetism  will kick you hard as it tries to maintain it’s magnetic field from collapsing.

called … back EMF  or counter EMF.

 

just fix the switch 🙂  keep fingers away.

Exactly what i was thinking.

[Beno]

well I just researched the stator a bit.. on googling: various online voices say Stator output is AC 14-15 volts. what I was getting hit with over on my solenoid jump activation was full spark plug volts.. like the 6000+volt stuff.  Something is off here.

this kind of stray voltage doesn’t belong wandering over by the starter solenoid… makes no sense.

I’m going to keep researching this.. but I think this may be what killed my starter switch, I can’t have 6000+volts flying around the wiring harness on on start.

I’ll start with tracing the ground. then pulling all the harness connections to the coils.. maybe be able to track which one its coming from.

 

 

 

 

[crosbyman]

run the engine in total darknes and look for strays  if you feel that  the jolt you got  was… plug voltage level

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