Oznog
Active Member
Awhile back I heard someone saying putting a penny on top of a car battery- like on the plastic- protects the terminals against corrosion.
Now I'm quite familiar with sacrificial anode protection as used to great success in ships and bridges, and galvanized coating. But as I understand it, this requires an electrical connection to the object needing protection, and only protects against liquids which form a continuous contact between the two surfaces.
This isn't a continuous liquid contact scenario, nor is the penny even in electrical contact with the terminal (though it could be). I don't think copper has the high activity level to make an anode versus the lead terminal, but the zinc inside a post-1983 copper clad penny would. Still, the rest of the scenario looks all wrong.
I saw a handful of references in Google to using the penny, yet nobody debunking it. Is this just too obscure a legend to merit a response or could this scenario have some merit to it?
Now I'm quite familiar with sacrificial anode protection as used to great success in ships and bridges, and galvanized coating. But as I understand it, this requires an electrical connection to the object needing protection, and only protects against liquids which form a continuous contact between the two surfaces.
This isn't a continuous liquid contact scenario, nor is the penny even in electrical contact with the terminal (though it could be). I don't think copper has the high activity level to make an anode versus the lead terminal, but the zinc inside a post-1983 copper clad penny would. Still, the rest of the scenario looks all wrong.
I saw a handful of references in Google to using the penny, yet nobody debunking it. Is this just too obscure a legend to merit a response or could this scenario have some merit to it?