? how bad did I screw up ? (electrical question)

 Seemed the battery was dead; I called a local shop, described the
problem (turn on key, get lights, hit start/switch, one loud "click" &
all is dead; wait 30-45 seconds, lights come back on, repeat... no
start),
it was suggested I try to jump bike from my truck, "be sure & leave
truck off); I tried it, but to my horror, realized after the fact I
had reversed the jumper cables!!!  red cable to neg post/black cable
to pos post on the truck, just the opposite on bike.  there was a
momentary sparking upon touching the cable to bike battery, then
nothing; no lights, wait awhile, no lights....
I did take the battery in for testing; it's definitely dead;

Could I just have finished off the battery? or, did I cause even worse
damage to the bike's electrical?    btw, it's a 96 honda shadow ace...

thanks in advance for any and all thoughts!

jeff (the dummy)

 

Your battery was probably ruined from sulfation before you ever
started messing around with the jumper cables.

You may have blown out a master fuse. Honda cleverly concealed the
master fuse under a rubber cover on the starter solenoid on some
models. It's usually about 30 amps.

Other damage from reversing the jumper cables could include blown out
power diodes in the rectifier regulator.

The ONLY way to test out the rectifier regulator is to install a fully-
charged battery in good condition, start the engine up, and watch how
the voltage rises and falls when you measure it with a good voltmeter
on the 20 volt scale.

The voltage should rise to 14.5 volts or 15.0 volts every time you
twist the throttle, fall back to battery voltage, then increase again
as you roll the throttle on again.

Regulators designed for maintenance free batteries may allow the
voltage to rise to 15.5 to 16 volts before they shunt the excess power
to ground.

 
The previous poster is most likely correct.  The battery was probably dead
and buried before you got to it.

Ironically, this may have saved you some serious problems, and not just with
the bike.  A dead battery will have a high internal resistance, so not a
whole lot of current will flow through the jumper cables...which is why you
weren't suddenly holding molten copper.  Ouch!  Or play host to an exploding
battery fireworks show, either from the truck, bike, or both!

Instead, you got a bit of a spark.  Had you really shorted out a solid 24
volt connection with thick copper wires, you would have had much more
excitement.

This situation is yet another reason folks recommend using the positive
battery posts and the frame or other metal part for the negative connection,
on both vehicles.  It's slightly harder to make this mistake using this 'old
school' method.  Just using the battery posts can confuse anybody (including
me on one occasion).

CS

 
(snippage)

Thanks, to Both of you for your time to reply;
Talk about an "excuse," but, here it is:  I'm very visual; I "always"
look for the red wire on the battery (all my vehicles happen to have
red wires on positive); however, the entire top of the battery in the
truck is bright red; also, there's one of those "anti corrosion rings"
on the negative post, it happens to be red!   I was asleep at the
wheel!!!!   (I moved that to the positive side, just in case!)

Anyhow, I went into the bike & checked, & found the master fuse to be
fried; I'm just waiting on the new battery, so's to hook it up & see
there's no other problem; got my fingers crossed!
Again, thanks for the replies!
Jeff